as calmly and brightly as the stars of heaven. The magistrate, who had bad eyes, thought it excellent because it did n'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 päreä, 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 could n'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 lamp-light, 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 did n't want päreä any more.
But Pekka was so little enlightened by the whole explanation that he immediately began to split up the päre-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 päreä any more.
"Oh! I quite forgot," said Pekka; "but there it may bide if it is n't wanted any more," and with that Pekka drove his päre 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 päre 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?
"I am only patching up my shoes," said Pekka to father.
"Oh, indeed! Patching your shoes, eh? Then if you can't see to do that by the same light that does for me, you may take yourself off with your päre into the bath-house or behind it if you like."
And Pekka went.
He stuck his boots under his arm, took his stool in one hand and his päre in the other, and off he went. He crept softly through the door into the hall, and out of the hall into the yard. The päre light flamed outside in the blast, and played a little while, glaring red, over outhouses, stalls, and stables. We children saw the light through the window and thought it looked very pretty. But when Pekka bent down to get behind the bath-house door, it was all dark again in the yard, and instead of the päre we saw only the lamp mirroring itself in the dark window-panes.
Henceforth we never burned a päre in the dwelling-room again. The lamp shone victoriously from the roof, and on Sunday evenings all the townsfolk often used to come to look upon and admire it. It was known all over the parish that our house was the first, after the parsonage, where the lamp had been used. After we had set the example, the magistrate bought a lamp like ours, but as he had never learned to light it, he was glad to sell it to the innkeeper, and the innkeeper has it still.
The poorer farmfolk, however, have not been able to get themselves lamps, but even now they do their long evening's work by the glare of a päre.
But when we had had the lamp a short time, father planed the walls of the dwelling-room all smooth and white, and they never got black again, especially after the old stove, which used to smoke, had to make room for another, which discharged its smoke outside and had a cowl.
Pekka made a new fireplace in the bath-house out of the stones of the old stove, and the crickets flitted thither with the stones—at least their chirping was never heard any more in the dwelling room. Father didn't care a bit, but we children felt, now and then, during the long winter evenings, a strange sort of yearning after old times, so we very often found our way down to the bath-house to listen to the crickets, and there was Pekka sitting out the long evenings by the light of his päre.
1 ↑ A päre (pr. payray; Swed., perta; Ger., pergei) is a resinous pine chip, or splinter, used instead of torch or candle to light the poorer houses in Finland.
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