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.