Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Scandinavian).djvu/37

Rh "Yes—surely we might try it, to see how it will burn."

"It'll burn right enough. Just wait till the evening, and don't bother.

After dinner, scullery-Pekka brought in a large frozen block of wood to split up into päreä, and cast it from his shoulders on to the floor with a thud which shook the whole room and set in motion the oil in the lamp.

"Steady!" cries father; "what are you making that row for?"

"I brought in this päre-block to melt it a bit—nothing else will do it—it is regularly frozen."

"You may save yourself the trouble then," said father, and he winked at us.

"Well, but you can't get a blaze out of it at all, otherwise."

"You may save yourself the trouble, I say."

"Are no more päreä to be split up, then?"

"Well, suppose I did say that no more päreä were to be split up?"

"Oh! 't is all the same to me if master can get on without 'em."

"Don't you see, Pekka, what is hanging down from the rafters there?" When father put this question he looked proudly up at the lamp, and then he looked pityingly down upon Pekka.

Pekka put his clod in the corner, and then, but not till then, looked up at the lamp.