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Page 5
The journey took father all day, and a very long time it seemed to
us all. We didn't even relish our food that day, although we had
milk soup for dinner. But scullery-Pekka gobbled and guzzled as
much as all of us put together, and spent the day in splitting
parea till he had filled the outhouse full. Mother, too, didn't
spin much flax that day either, for she kept on going to the
window and peeping out, over the ice, after father. She said to
Pekka, now and then, that perhaps we shouldn't want all those
parea any more, but Pekka couldn't have laid it very much to
heart, for he didn't so much as ask the reason why.
It was not till supper time that we heard the horses' bells in the
courtyard.
With the bread crumbs in our mouths, we children rushed out, but
father drove us in again and bade scullery-Pekka come and help
with the chest. Pekka, who had already been dozing away on the
bench by the stove, was so awkward as to knock the chest against
the threshold as he was helping father to carry it into the room,
and he would most certainly have got a sound drubbing for it from
father if only he had been younger, but he was an old fellow now,
and father had never in his life struck a man older than himself.
Nevertheless, Pekka would have heard a thing or two from father if
the lamp HAD gone to pieces, but fortunately no damage had been
done.
"Get up on the stove, you lout!" roared father at Pekka, and up on
the stove Pekka crept.
But father had already taken the lamp out of the chest, and now
let it hang down from one hand.
"Look! there it is now! How do you think it looks? You pour the
oil into this glass, and that stump of ribbon inside is the wick--
hold that pare a little further off, will you!"
"Shall we light it?" said mother, as she drew back.
"Are you mad? How can it be lighted when there's no oil in it?"
"Well, but can't you pour some in, then?"
"Pour in oil? A likely tale! Yes, that's just the way when people
don't understand these things; but the storekeeper warned me again
and again never to pour the oil in by firelight, as it might catch
fire and burn the whole house down."
"Then when will you pour the oil into it!"
"In the daytime--daytime, d'ye hear? Can't you wait till day? It
isn't such a great marvel as all that." "Have you SEEN it burn,
then?"
"Of course I have. What a question! I've seen it burn many a time,
both at the parsonage and when we tried this one here at the
storekeeper's."
"And it burned, did it?"
"Burned? Of course it did, and when we put up the shutters of the
shop, you could have seen a needle on the floor. Look here, now!
Here's a sort of capsule, and when the fire is burning in this
fixed glass here, the light cannot creep up to the top, where it
isn't wanted either, but spreads out downward, so that you could
find a needle an the floor."
Now we should have all very much liked to try if we could find a
needle on the floor, but father rang up the lamp to the roof and
began to eat his supper.
"This evening we must be content, once more, with a pare," said
father, as he ate; "but to-morrow the lamp shall burn in this very
house."
"Look, father! Pekka has been splitting parea all day, and filled
the outhouse with them."
"That's all right. We've fuel now, at any rate, to last us all the
winter, for we sha'n't want them for anything else."
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