Heartstrings -Excerpt (1st Chapter)
"I am a seamstress at St. Paul Garments and I am trying to organize the girls in our factory. It takes time, but in the end I know we will win. In fact, I am going to a union meeting right now. Would you like to come?"
Nils' eyes widened with surprise as he stared at the petite redhead. No Norwegian girl would ever be involved in such an enterprise. Those he knew in Voss were far more interested in finding a rich husband, following new fashions, or exchanging knitting patterns, but this working girl, barely twenty, already had a purpose in life. As she talked, strands of red hair came loose from under her hat and she brushed them from her face. Behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, Nils saw green eyes filled with energy and fire.
How could he possibly say no?
"I like to see your meeting. Maybe I learn more things about America. Are there Norwegian people that join union?" Nils asked.
"There are all kinds of people—Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Irish, Germans. You see, the bosses like immigrants. They come to America and don't know how much they should get paid, and don't speak good enough English to ask. They get paid a lot less than the other workers. They are happy just to get a job to feed their families, and the bosses know that."
"Ja, it is true. I come here first day and my cousin say to me, 'I find you job. They want strong man, ten cents an hour. You start tomorrow.' So, I never ask questions. I was glad to have job when I come to St. Paul. You hear true things about stockyards. Men work long hours for little money and place is not clean. Now, I know more, so I try to look for another job. But it is very hard."
Anna looked up at the clock above Kaiser's Watch Repair and realized that it was almost time for the meeting. She waved her hand, indicating the side door of the building, and Nils followed. They a long flight of stairs, then entered a crowded, smoke-filled room on the second floor. Nils strained to catch a word or two of Norwegian, but it was too noisy to make out any distinct language. He sat in the back of the room, while Anna made her way to the front to talk to a burly fellow with a handlebar mustache.
She tapped Emil Kruse on the shoulder. "Emil, my girls are just too afraid to sign or do anything, but I think I’ve come up with an idea that might work. And you know what else? I brought a greenhorn Norwegian here to the meeting. He's sitting somewhere in the back and probably won't understand most of what we say, but it's a start. He’s from the stockyards." Anna's voice bubbled with enthusiasm.
"Good work, Anna, one more man for the union. I will let you have the floor after Karl and Jimmy speak about the metalworkers and trainmen." Emil reached for the gavel and called the meeting to order.
Nils sat through the meeting, understanding about half of what was said. Despite his lack of comprehension, he could tell from the frequent bursts of applause and voices of affirmation that the men were passionate about the union cause. Finally, Anna stepped up to the podium.
"My fellow workers," she began. "I am Anna Katz from St. Paul Garments and I am leading the organizing efforts at my factory. It has been very difficult to convince the girls to join the union. They are scared to breathe, let alone sign up, because the bosses walk by every fifteen to thirty minutes. I think the best way of winning them over is to talk to them outside of work." She glanced toward Emil. He gave her a nod of encouragement before she continued.
"I suggest we plan a picnic at some place like Como Park and invite the workers and their families. In between the sandwiches and fiddle music, we can offer a couple of pro-union speeches and send around sign-up cards. I think we will get a good number of people to come, because they are not going to pass up a free meal, considering they can barely afford to eat on the wages they make. What do you think?"
"I can play 'em a couple of jigs," yelled Joe Rogan from the back of the room.
"I got a harmonica," another added.
"Put me down for accordion."
"I can brew a barrel of good German beer."
Tom Trivisani, the foreman, spoke up. "Good idea, Anna. I’ll spread the word around the factory."
Hands rose as men eagerly offered their services for the picnic. Anna held up a hand for quiet.
"I don't think having spirits at the picnic would be proper. After all, we want them to pay attention to our message instead of getting drunk. Also, there will be families with children."
"Anna is right," Emil Kruse agreed. "The people are going to think of it as a picnic, but for us it is a chance to speak and sign up fifty, or maybe even a hundred workers. We cannot let alcohol take it out of our hands. Let's pick a date and start planning."
Anna, Emil, and the other union members hammered out the details of the picnic and assigned tasks to volunteers for the next half-hour. Nils stayed in the back, unsure if he should go home or wait for Anna. Obviously, she was smart and articulate. What use would she have for me, a new immigrant who can barely speak English? Nils thought to himself before he decided to stay. It would be proper to thank her for her help and offer to walk her home. He was not in a hurry to get back to the house on Cayuga Street. An hour spent in the company of a pretty girl would be far more enjoyable than watching Oddleif and Oskar share the whiskey bottle on the front steps.
Anna walked toward the back of the room, followed by Emil. She introduced him to Nils. The men shook hands and exchanged greetings in a mixture of English, German, and Norwegian. Emil left soon after, and Nils had a chance to talk to Anna.
"I want to thank you for help with my map and ask me to come to the union meeting. I learn a lot from this. If I can ask you, maybe I walk you to your house? In Norway man do that. It is different in America, true?"
Anna felt warmth heat her cheeks at the offer. "No, it's not that different in America. I can perfectly well walk home myself, but I will be happy to have your company. My only concern is that you find your way back with that map of yours."
Nils pulled out the map and a pencil stub. "If you take pencil to write where we are now and where is your house. My house is big X on Cayuga Street."
Anna took the map and drew a line from Rice and Sherburne to her house on Pinehurst Avenue, and then another line from Pinehurst to Cayuga. Her hand paused in mid-air as she realized it would be foolish to have a strange man escort her home, let alone give him directions from there to his own. The newspapers warned of men who picked up naïve girls, and then raped and murdered them. Tomorrow my body could be floating down the Mississippi river! She stole a glance at Nils Bjørnsen's face. His blue eyes were full of trust, with absolutely no evil or indecent intentions in their blue depths.
She made a decision—and hoped it was the right one. "You know, if you walk with me, and then go home, it will be about a seven mile walk, unless you take the streetcar. Perhaps a longer walk than you figured on for a Sunday afternoon."
He smiled at her concern. "It is no trouble. Norwegians like to walk. We go up mountains with goats and to forest for berries and mushrooms. Before I come to St. Paul, I never see streetcar, and I take train only twice—from Voss to Christiania and New York to St. Paul. The rest of way, I come on ship and with my feet."
"I see that," Anna said as she glanced at Nils' shoes. "My father is a shoemaker and I am sure he can fix up your boots so you can walk around the world several times over. Well, let's go."
Anna led Nils from the building and headed south on Rice Street.
Nils tried to keep up a conversation, despite his poor English, during the long walk to her home. He knew something he could do for the union picnic, but due to his poor English he was embarrassed to speak up during the meeting. "For your union picnic, maybe people like to hear Norwegian music?"
"I don't see why not. I would like to myself, since I have never heard it," Anna answered. "What do you play?"
"I play hardingfele. It is Norwegian violin with eight strings. In Voss I play for dances and weddings, here not very often. It is hard to use same hands to play music God puts in my head that I use to take life of so many animals He make."
To Anna, music was an outpouring of a man's soul and she could feel her new friend was pained by what he did at the stockyards.
"Oh, please play your violin at the picnic," she implored. "You will give the people so much joy and happiness. Perhaps you will start to feel better, too. Papa plays the violin and I am sure that your Norwegian one will sound just as beautiful."
"You are very kind to ask me, so I play for your picnic. I try to think I am in Norway. I hear church bells ring, my mother call goats, water fall from the mountains—then music will come. Often I miss my farm, but maybe it take time and I like St. Paul better." Nils glanced at the pavement and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Miss Katz, you are homesick for Russia after eight years in America?"
Anna thought about the question for several moments before she answered. "There are things that I miss and others that I am glad I do not have to live through again. It is not good to be born a Jew in Russia. Many times when I was little, bands of Russian men went through Jewish towns, burned houses, beat and sometimes killed people, even children, because they were Jewish. They said that it was their Christian duty to persecute the Jews, but I think they wanted to hurt people for no reason at all. We hid in the cellar, hearing their footsteps come closer and closer to our house, and wondered if we would be next. Mama tied rags around our mouths so we would not cry or make any noise. We were lucky, but our neighbors were not—the baby cried and they were found out. The Russian men lined the whole family against the wall of their own house and shot them one by one. Then they got on their horses and left. After that happened, Papa said, 'Never again. We are leaving now,' and so we came to St. Paul."
Anna blinked away the moisture that misted her eyes, and then continued, her voice holding a bit of melancholy. "What I do miss is having a house and a garden. When you mentioned going to the forest to pick berries and mushrooms, I remembered doing such things with my family. We got baskets of sweet blueberries and raspberries, and late in summer many different kinds of mushrooms. We had to know which ones were good to eat though, because if one of us children was not careful, we could get the entire family sick with one mushroom. Mama fried the mushrooms with onions and potatoes and put sour cream on top. M-m-m-m, it was so delicious, I still remember how they smell even after all these years." Anna took a quick breath, half expecting the scent of fried mushrooms. "Since we came to St. Paul, I have never even been outside the city to see if there are woods here like in the old country, and we have no space for a garden by the apartment." She glanced sidelong at him with a half smile. "I guess this is a long answer to your question."
Nils gritted his teeth as he fought a flood of emotion—hatred for the men who perpetrated acts of unspeakable cruelty, and the urge to care for and protect the girl he had just met. He turned to face Anna and clasped his hands. "You tell me many things I think about seriously. I read Bible and Jesus Christ talks of love for all people. I cannot understand how men do so very bad things in His name. I can see why you leave." He paused for a moment. "Maybe when union make bosses give us holidays, we can go and see if there is forest with berries and mushrooms near St. Paul."
"That would be wonderful. I know the streetcar goes pretty far out, but if you want to go way out of the city, you have to take the train from the downtown station. I will pack us a lunch and you can play your, how do you say it, herring fiddle for me." For a moment, Anna was caught up in fantasy, planning a trip out of town with a Norwegian fellow she just met. What harm could come out of something that would never happen?
"It is har-ding-fe-le." Nils pronounced the word carefully with a kind of a singsong Scandinavian accent.
"You will have to teach me some more Norwegian words. It sounds funny, I don't mean in a bad way, but different. Oh, and here is my apartment block." Anna glanced up and froze when she saw her mother's face peering down from the second floor window. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to determine who accompanied her daughter, and her lips pursed tightly in disapproval. "Thank you for walking me home. I enjoyed talking with you and I hope you don't get lost on the way back."
Nils translated from Norwegian to English in his head as he struggled to find a way to arrange a second meeting with Anna. "It was very pleasant to talk with you, also. I practice my English, I think it is better. I would ask you if you like to talk again. Maybe next Sunday, three o'clock?"
Anna's mind whirled. She wanted to spend time with her new friend, but she knew her mother and neighbors would disapprove. Nils just could not walk up to #2601 Pinehurst Avenue, knock on Apartment #2 and ask to see Miss Katz. Not in a Jewish section of town, with Mama and her lady friends busy arranging a match between her and some upstanding Jewish fellow who, of course, had a good job, something in the bank, and came from a fine family. Nils would have to meet her several blocks away, on the border of the Irish and Jewish neighborhoods.
"Here, give me your map." Anna took Nils' map and put an X on the intersection five blocks from her house. "Meet me here, three o'clock next Sunday. My family, they are not used to Norwegians."
Anna ran up the steps, turned around at the door, waved, and then disappeared into the hallway. Nils tipped his hat, waved back, and started on the long walk home.
Nils' eyes widened with surprise as he stared at the petite redhead. No Norwegian girl would ever be involved in such an enterprise. Those he knew in Voss were far more interested in finding a rich husband, following new fashions, or exchanging knitting patterns, but this working girl, barely twenty, already had a purpose in life. As she talked, strands of red hair came loose from under her hat and she brushed them from her face. Behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, Nils saw green eyes filled with energy and fire.
How could he possibly say no?
"I like to see your meeting. Maybe I learn more things about America. Are there Norwegian people that join union?" Nils asked.
"There are all kinds of people—Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Irish, Germans. You see, the bosses like immigrants. They come to America and don't know how much they should get paid, and don't speak good enough English to ask. They get paid a lot less than the other workers. They are happy just to get a job to feed their families, and the bosses know that."
"Ja, it is true. I come here first day and my cousin say to me, 'I find you job. They want strong man, ten cents an hour. You start tomorrow.' So, I never ask questions. I was glad to have job when I come to St. Paul. You hear true things about stockyards. Men work long hours for little money and place is not clean. Now, I know more, so I try to look for another job. But it is very hard."
Anna looked up at the clock above Kaiser's Watch Repair and realized that it was almost time for the meeting. She waved her hand, indicating the side door of the building, and Nils followed. They a long flight of stairs, then entered a crowded, smoke-filled room on the second floor. Nils strained to catch a word or two of Norwegian, but it was too noisy to make out any distinct language. He sat in the back of the room, while Anna made her way to the front to talk to a burly fellow with a handlebar mustache.
She tapped Emil Kruse on the shoulder. "Emil, my girls are just too afraid to sign or do anything, but I think I’ve come up with an idea that might work. And you know what else? I brought a greenhorn Norwegian here to the meeting. He's sitting somewhere in the back and probably won't understand most of what we say, but it's a start. He’s from the stockyards." Anna's voice bubbled with enthusiasm.
"Good work, Anna, one more man for the union. I will let you have the floor after Karl and Jimmy speak about the metalworkers and trainmen." Emil reached for the gavel and called the meeting to order.
Nils sat through the meeting, understanding about half of what was said. Despite his lack of comprehension, he could tell from the frequent bursts of applause and voices of affirmation that the men were passionate about the union cause. Finally, Anna stepped up to the podium.
"My fellow workers," she began. "I am Anna Katz from St. Paul Garments and I am leading the organizing efforts at my factory. It has been very difficult to convince the girls to join the union. They are scared to breathe, let alone sign up, because the bosses walk by every fifteen to thirty minutes. I think the best way of winning them over is to talk to them outside of work." She glanced toward Emil. He gave her a nod of encouragement before she continued.
"I suggest we plan a picnic at some place like Como Park and invite the workers and their families. In between the sandwiches and fiddle music, we can offer a couple of pro-union speeches and send around sign-up cards. I think we will get a good number of people to come, because they are not going to pass up a free meal, considering they can barely afford to eat on the wages they make. What do you think?"
"I can play 'em a couple of jigs," yelled Joe Rogan from the back of the room.
"I got a harmonica," another added.
"Put me down for accordion."
"I can brew a barrel of good German beer."
Tom Trivisani, the foreman, spoke up. "Good idea, Anna. I’ll spread the word around the factory."
Hands rose as men eagerly offered their services for the picnic. Anna held up a hand for quiet.
"I don't think having spirits at the picnic would be proper. After all, we want them to pay attention to our message instead of getting drunk. Also, there will be families with children."
"Anna is right," Emil Kruse agreed. "The people are going to think of it as a picnic, but for us it is a chance to speak and sign up fifty, or maybe even a hundred workers. We cannot let alcohol take it out of our hands. Let's pick a date and start planning."
Anna, Emil, and the other union members hammered out the details of the picnic and assigned tasks to volunteers for the next half-hour. Nils stayed in the back, unsure if he should go home or wait for Anna. Obviously, she was smart and articulate. What use would she have for me, a new immigrant who can barely speak English? Nils thought to himself before he decided to stay. It would be proper to thank her for her help and offer to walk her home. He was not in a hurry to get back to the house on Cayuga Street. An hour spent in the company of a pretty girl would be far more enjoyable than watching Oddleif and Oskar share the whiskey bottle on the front steps.
Anna walked toward the back of the room, followed by Emil. She introduced him to Nils. The men shook hands and exchanged greetings in a mixture of English, German, and Norwegian. Emil left soon after, and Nils had a chance to talk to Anna.
"I want to thank you for help with my map and ask me to come to the union meeting. I learn a lot from this. If I can ask you, maybe I walk you to your house? In Norway man do that. It is different in America, true?"
Anna felt warmth heat her cheeks at the offer. "No, it's not that different in America. I can perfectly well walk home myself, but I will be happy to have your company. My only concern is that you find your way back with that map of yours."
Nils pulled out the map and a pencil stub. "If you take pencil to write where we are now and where is your house. My house is big X on Cayuga Street."
Anna took the map and drew a line from Rice and Sherburne to her house on Pinehurst Avenue, and then another line from Pinehurst to Cayuga. Her hand paused in mid-air as she realized it would be foolish to have a strange man escort her home, let alone give him directions from there to his own. The newspapers warned of men who picked up naïve girls, and then raped and murdered them. Tomorrow my body could be floating down the Mississippi river! She stole a glance at Nils Bjørnsen's face. His blue eyes were full of trust, with absolutely no evil or indecent intentions in their blue depths.
She made a decision—and hoped it was the right one. "You know, if you walk with me, and then go home, it will be about a seven mile walk, unless you take the streetcar. Perhaps a longer walk than you figured on for a Sunday afternoon."
He smiled at her concern. "It is no trouble. Norwegians like to walk. We go up mountains with goats and to forest for berries and mushrooms. Before I come to St. Paul, I never see streetcar, and I take train only twice—from Voss to Christiania and New York to St. Paul. The rest of way, I come on ship and with my feet."
"I see that," Anna said as she glanced at Nils' shoes. "My father is a shoemaker and I am sure he can fix up your boots so you can walk around the world several times over. Well, let's go."
Anna led Nils from the building and headed south on Rice Street.
Nils tried to keep up a conversation, despite his poor English, during the long walk to her home. He knew something he could do for the union picnic, but due to his poor English he was embarrassed to speak up during the meeting. "For your union picnic, maybe people like to hear Norwegian music?"
"I don't see why not. I would like to myself, since I have never heard it," Anna answered. "What do you play?"
"I play hardingfele. It is Norwegian violin with eight strings. In Voss I play for dances and weddings, here not very often. It is hard to use same hands to play music God puts in my head that I use to take life of so many animals He make."
To Anna, music was an outpouring of a man's soul and she could feel her new friend was pained by what he did at the stockyards.
"Oh, please play your violin at the picnic," she implored. "You will give the people so much joy and happiness. Perhaps you will start to feel better, too. Papa plays the violin and I am sure that your Norwegian one will sound just as beautiful."
"You are very kind to ask me, so I play for your picnic. I try to think I am in Norway. I hear church bells ring, my mother call goats, water fall from the mountains—then music will come. Often I miss my farm, but maybe it take time and I like St. Paul better." Nils glanced at the pavement and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Miss Katz, you are homesick for Russia after eight years in America?"
Anna thought about the question for several moments before she answered. "There are things that I miss and others that I am glad I do not have to live through again. It is not good to be born a Jew in Russia. Many times when I was little, bands of Russian men went through Jewish towns, burned houses, beat and sometimes killed people, even children, because they were Jewish. They said that it was their Christian duty to persecute the Jews, but I think they wanted to hurt people for no reason at all. We hid in the cellar, hearing their footsteps come closer and closer to our house, and wondered if we would be next. Mama tied rags around our mouths so we would not cry or make any noise. We were lucky, but our neighbors were not—the baby cried and they were found out. The Russian men lined the whole family against the wall of their own house and shot them one by one. Then they got on their horses and left. After that happened, Papa said, 'Never again. We are leaving now,' and so we came to St. Paul."
Anna blinked away the moisture that misted her eyes, and then continued, her voice holding a bit of melancholy. "What I do miss is having a house and a garden. When you mentioned going to the forest to pick berries and mushrooms, I remembered doing such things with my family. We got baskets of sweet blueberries and raspberries, and late in summer many different kinds of mushrooms. We had to know which ones were good to eat though, because if one of us children was not careful, we could get the entire family sick with one mushroom. Mama fried the mushrooms with onions and potatoes and put sour cream on top. M-m-m-m, it was so delicious, I still remember how they smell even after all these years." Anna took a quick breath, half expecting the scent of fried mushrooms. "Since we came to St. Paul, I have never even been outside the city to see if there are woods here like in the old country, and we have no space for a garden by the apartment." She glanced sidelong at him with a half smile. "I guess this is a long answer to your question."
Nils gritted his teeth as he fought a flood of emotion—hatred for the men who perpetrated acts of unspeakable cruelty, and the urge to care for and protect the girl he had just met. He turned to face Anna and clasped his hands. "You tell me many things I think about seriously. I read Bible and Jesus Christ talks of love for all people. I cannot understand how men do so very bad things in His name. I can see why you leave." He paused for a moment. "Maybe when union make bosses give us holidays, we can go and see if there is forest with berries and mushrooms near St. Paul."
"That would be wonderful. I know the streetcar goes pretty far out, but if you want to go way out of the city, you have to take the train from the downtown station. I will pack us a lunch and you can play your, how do you say it, herring fiddle for me." For a moment, Anna was caught up in fantasy, planning a trip out of town with a Norwegian fellow she just met. What harm could come out of something that would never happen?
"It is har-ding-fe-le." Nils pronounced the word carefully with a kind of a singsong Scandinavian accent.
"You will have to teach me some more Norwegian words. It sounds funny, I don't mean in a bad way, but different. Oh, and here is my apartment block." Anna glanced up and froze when she saw her mother's face peering down from the second floor window. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to determine who accompanied her daughter, and her lips pursed tightly in disapproval. "Thank you for walking me home. I enjoyed talking with you and I hope you don't get lost on the way back."
Nils translated from Norwegian to English in his head as he struggled to find a way to arrange a second meeting with Anna. "It was very pleasant to talk with you, also. I practice my English, I think it is better. I would ask you if you like to talk again. Maybe next Sunday, three o'clock?"
Anna's mind whirled. She wanted to spend time with her new friend, but she knew her mother and neighbors would disapprove. Nils just could not walk up to #2601 Pinehurst Avenue, knock on Apartment #2 and ask to see Miss Katz. Not in a Jewish section of town, with Mama and her lady friends busy arranging a match between her and some upstanding Jewish fellow who, of course, had a good job, something in the bank, and came from a fine family. Nils would have to meet her several blocks away, on the border of the Irish and Jewish neighborhoods.
"Here, give me your map." Anna took Nils' map and put an X on the intersection five blocks from her house. "Meet me here, three o'clock next Sunday. My family, they are not used to Norwegians."
Anna ran up the steps, turned around at the door, waved, and then disappeared into the hallway. Nils tipped his hat, waved back, and started on the long walk home.