Maja shuddered. "You wouldn't do that, would you?" she asked appealingly.
Juhani looked at her for a moment, and then, unable to withstand the temptation to tease her, said, "Why not?" and ran away.
Before New Year's with its special significance came, a guest arrived from Helsingfors. It was Juhani and Maja's aunt, a woman who had achieved some renown in the Capital as an architect.
They enjoyed her vivid descriptions of how the snow there was daily shoveled from the pavements, and how when you step on what remains it screams: "A hard winter! A hard winter!"
"We haven't gone in for as much ice yachting as usual," she remarked, rather sadly, the children thought. "The times are too unsettled."
"Tell us about the yachting," urged Maja, seeing the look of interest in Juhani's face, and knowing his slowness in asking for what he wanted.
"I know nothing more thrilling," the aunt returned, smiling, "than lying flat on your stomach on an ice yacht in motion. The yacht may take little leaps so that at times it seems to you as if it were about to fly. Then you rush madly at something and prepare yourself surely for a smash, but just in time the yacht swerves and you are safe to fly some more. In a sense you do fly, for when the wind is strong the yacht is sometimes lifted high into the air. When it comes down you feel as if the world were coming to an end. It would have been fine for ice yachting this year, for we had black ice."
"What is that?" asked Maja.
"I know," broke in Juhani unexpectedly. "It is when the ice forms before snow falls."