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Page 8
But what we could not make out at all was how the fire was put
into that sort of glass. We asked mother, but she said we should
see how it was done afterward.
The townsfolk vied with each other in praising the lamp, and one
said one thing, and another said another. The innkeeper's old
mother maintained that it shone just as calmly and brightly as the
stars of heaven. The magistrate, who had sad eyes, thought it
excellent because it didn't smoke, and you could burn it right in
the middle of the hall without blackening the walls in the least,
to which father replied that it was, in fact, meant for the hall,
but did capitally for the dwelling room as well, and one had no
need now to dash hither and thither with parea, for all could now
see by a single light, let them be never so many.
When mother observed that the lesser chandelier in church scarcely
gave a better light, father bade me take my ABC book, and go to
the door to see if I could read it there. I went and began to
read: "Our Father." But then they all said: "The lad knows that by
heart." Mother then stuck a hymn-book in my hand, and I set off
with "By the Waters of Babylon."
"Yes; it is perfectly marvellous!" was the testimony of the
townsfolk.
Then said father: "Now if any one had a needle, you might throw it
on the floor and you would see that it would be found at once."
The magistrate's step-daughter had a needle in her bosom, but when
she threw it on the floor, it fell into a crack, and we couldn't
find it at all--it was so small.
It was only after the townsfolk had gone that Pekka came in.
He blinked a bit at first at the unusual lamplight, but then
calmly proceeded to take off his jacket and rag boots.
"What's that twinkling in the roof there enough to put your eyes
out?" he asked at last, when he had hung his stockings up on the
rafters.
"Come now, guess what it is," said father, and he winked at mother
and us.
"I can't guess," said Pekka, and he came nearer to the lamp.
"Perhaps it's the church chandelier, eh?" said father jokingly.
"Perhaps," admitted Pekka; but he had become really curious, and
passed his thumb along the lamp.
"There's no need to finger it," says father; "look at it, but
don't touch it."
"All right, all right! I don't want to meddle with it!" said
Pekka, a little put out, and he drew back to the bench alongside
the wall by the door.
Mother must have thought that it was a sin to treat poor Pekka so,
for she began to explain to him that it was not a church
chandelier at all, but what people called a lamp, and that it was
lit with oil, and that was why people didn't want parea any more.
But Pekka was so little enlightened by the whole explanation that
he immediately began to split up the pare-wood log which he had
dragged into the room the day before. Then father said to him that
he had already told him there was no need to split parea any more.
"Oh! I quite forgot," said Pekka; "but there it may bide if it
isn't wanted any more," and with that Pekka drove his pare knife
into a rift in the wall.
"There let it rest at leisure," said father.
But Pekka said never a word more. A little while after that he
began to patch up his boots, stretched on tiptoe to reach down a
pare from the rafters, lit it, stuck it in a slit fagot, and sat
him down on his little stool by the stove. We children saw this
before father, who stood with his back to Pekka planing away at
his axe-shaft under the lamp. We said nothing, however, but
laughed and whispered among ourselves, "If only father sees that,
what will he say, I wonder?" And when father did catch sight of
him, he planted himself arms akimbo in front of Pekka, and asked
him, quite spitefully, what sort of fine work he had there, since
he must needs have a separate light all to himself?
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