Our Little Finnish Cousin

by Clara Vostrovsky Winlow

At last, amid much commotion, the steamer came up. The passengers stepped ashore and bought many of the good things offered. But even when all were sold there was no sign of the steamer's departure. The big stacks of wood piled on the wharf, that were to serve the steamer for fuel, had first to be carried aboard. For this there was help in plenty. Men, women, and children were eager to have their services accepted. A couple of foreigners grew restless at the delay, but no one else betrayed any impatience, having been brought up, no doubt, on the Finnish proverb, "God did not create hurry."

The pier-master shouted something when it was all in, and the steamer, with many toots, departed. The people scattered until only Juhani and Maja remained to watch a heavily laden timber barge go slowly by on its way to the coast. Before it passed Juhani had nudged Maja to show her the pennies he had earned by carrying wood. With the slightest possible twinkle of mischief, Maja at first kept her own fist tightly closed. "Oh, show what you have!" Juhani exclaimed somewhat contemptuously, at which Maja opened her hand and showed twice as many pennies that her sweet face, as well as the nice berries, had brought her.

Juhani showed his surprise by staring and staring until Maja closed her hand again, explaining half in apology, "It was from the foreigners," and led the way to their boat.

Again they rowed silently over, anchored their boat in a little cove, and then walked rapidly across the fields. Maja began to hum a folk song, to which Juhani soon whistled a tune while he kept one hand on a sheathed knife, called a pukko, hanging from the belt around his waist. It was no wonder he was conscious and proud that it hung there. When his father had given it to him a few days before, he had said, "You are beginning to do man's work, Juhani, and so I think that you deserve a man's knife." Nor was it a cheap knife. Its leather sheath was tipped with brass and very prettily ornamented with a colored pattern.

Both children were barefoot and both walked with equal unconcern over stubble and sharp stones. At the edge of the last field Maja glanced inquiringly at her brother and then broke into a run. Juhani did not follow her example at first, but, when he did, he easily overtook her near a square farmhouse painted a bright red, but with doors and windows outlined in white. Against this house, reaching from the ground to the black painted roof, was a ladder to be used in case of fire. Up this Juhani ran, waving his hand to his sister when at the top.

Near this house were three storehouses, one for food, one for clothes and one for implements. Further away were cow houses, and a stable, the loft of which was used for storing food in winter, and as a bedroom for the maid servants in summer. There was also a small pig sty built of granite, a stone of which Finland has so much that it has been said it would be possible to rebuild all of London with it and still leave the supply apparently undiminished. Neat, strong fences of slanting wood enclosed these buildings.

Off by itself was an outbuilding more important in a way than any of these, the bath-house, which in Finland is never missing.

An older girl of about fourteen with a blue kerchief on her head was drawing water from a well near the kitchen door. As she emptied the bucket made of a pine trunk and attached to a long pole weighted at the end, she called to Juhani, who had just jumped from the ladder: "Hurry! The pastor has come to stay till we go to church to-morrow and he wants to ask you some Bible questions."

Without waiting for her, Juhani followed Maja, who had already entered the kitchen bright with shining copper, stopping first, however, to wipe his feet on a mat made of pine branches laid one above another.

This kitchen led directly into a pleasant living-room, with a tall china tiled stove, some chairs, a big sofa, a table, and a carved cupboard. Here were several odd beds too, that did not look like beds at all. They were beds shut up for the day. At night they would be pulled open. A small loom stood in one corner. Strips of home-made carpet were laid on the yellow painted floor.