Beyond was the bedroom, so low that a man could only stand upright in the middle; the wooden bed was folded away for the day, and the rough wooden table and bench denoted signs of an approaching meal, for a black bread loaf lay upon the table, and a wooden bowl of piimää was at hand.
Standing on the little barley patch which surrounded the house, we saw a sort of wigwam composed of loose fir-tree trunks. They leant against one another, spread out because of their greater size at the bottom, and narrowed to a kind of open chimney at the top. This was the housewife's extra kitchen, and there on a heap of stones a wood fire was smouldering, above which hung a cauldron for washing purposes. How like the native wigwam of Southern climes was this Northern kitchen—in the latter case only available during the warm weather, but then the family washing for the year is done in summer, and sufficient rågbröd also baked for many months' consumption. Before we had finished inspecting this simple culinary arrangement, the housewife arrived. She was no blushing maid, no beautiful fresh peasant girl. Blushing, beautiful maids don't exist in Finland, for which want the Mongolian blood or the climate is to blame, as well as hard work. The girls work hard before they enter their teens, and at seventeen are quite like old women. The good body who welcomed us was much pleased to see visitors in her little Savupirtti, and delighted to supply us with fresh milk, for, in spite of their terrible poverty, these torppari possessed a cow—who does not in Finland?—wherein lies the source of their comparative wealth. The Highland crofter, on the other hand, rarely owns even a pig!
Naturally the advent of three kärra created considerable sensation, and the old woman had immediately hurried to call her husband, so that he also might enjoy a look at the strangers. Consequently, he stood in the doorway awaiting our arrival.
Of course they neither of them wore any shoes or stockings. Even the richer peasants, who possess shoes or fur-lined boots for winter use, more often than not walk barefoot in the summer, while stockings are unknown luxuries, a piece of rag occasionally acting as a substitute.
The old lady's short serge skirt was coarsely woven, her white shirt was loose and clean, her apron was striped in many colours, after the native style, and all were "woven by herself," she told us with great pride. On her hair she wore a black cashmere kerchief. Her face might have belonged to a woman of a hundred, or a witch of the olden days, it was so wrinkled and tanned. Her hands were hard and horny, and yet, after half an hour's conversation, we discovered she was only about fifty-five, and her man seventy. But what a very, very old pair they really seemed. Weather-beaten and worn, poorly fed during the greater part of their lives, they were emaciated, and the stooping shoulders and deformed hands denoted hard work and a gray life. They seemed very jolly, nevertheless, this funny old pair. Perhaps it was our arrival, or perhaps in the warm sunny days they have not time to look on the dark side of things while gathering in the little tufts of grass that grow among the rocky boulders, drying birch leaves for the cow for winter, attending to the small patch of rye—their greatest earthly possession—or mending up the Savupirtti ere the first snows of October are upon them, that made them so cheerful.
The old woman was much more romantically inclined than the man. The Finnish character is slow and does not rush into speech; but a friendly pat on one grandchild's head, and a five-penni piece to the other, made our hostess quite chirpy. "May God's blessing accompany your journey," she said at parting; "may He protect the English ladies."
We got into cordial relations by degrees, and our friend the student, seeing a piece of woven band hanging up, asked its use.
"Ah," she answered, "that was one of the pieces the bridegroom gave to his groomsmen."
She was greatly delighted at our evident interest in her concerns, and told us how her son, when about twenty, met with a girl of another village, and took a fancy to her. (By law a girl must be fifteen, and a boy eighteen, and able to prove they have something to live on before they can marry.)
"He saw her many times, and decided to ask her to be his wife," she continued. "He had met the girl when he was working at her father's house, so he sent a puhemies, or spokesman, to ask for the girl's hand."