We heard movements in the kitchen. We called. The answer said "Come in, certainly," and we entered to find our men's hair literally standing on end as they stood, rug in hand, scanning the floor, over which a perfect zoological garden was promenading as coolly as flies on a hot summer's day over a kitchen ceiling—and we had no shoes or stockings on.
There were small red animals creeping sideways, there were little brown animals hopping, there were huge fat round beasts whose death left an unpleasant odour, there were crawling gray creatures, and every one was an enormous specimen of its kind, and—yes, 'tis true—they were there in millions.
It seems loathsome to write, but it was worse to see and feel, and one must write it, for the would-be traveller among the peasant homes of Finland ought to know what he may expect. Enchanting as the country is, interesting and hospitable as are its peasantry, the Finns must learn how to deal with such a curse, or no one will dare to enter any dwelling, until the tourist club opens shelters everywhere and supplies iron beds and good mattresses, and a capable woman to look after them all and keep them clean. Even the enthusiastic fisherman could not stand such bedfellows.
Six wooden chairs were placed in two rows in the small porch, and there in the cold wet early morning air we sat as quietly as circumstances would permit, for leaving the heated rooms did not mean leaving our tormentors.
We drew our coats round our shivering forms, we blew upon our chilled fingers to get up the circulation, we stared out at blank gray fog thick with malaria and ague.
Now came a revelation. The occupants of this house never slept in it during the hot weather. Why? Simply because they could not. Even they themselves could not stand the vermin, and therefore, like many other peasants of Finland, they lie in the hayloft in the summer months for preference, and that was where our friend had come from to give us help and succour, as we fondly believed, when he appeared like a benevolent apparition in that darkened door-way.
During all our horrors the farmer slept.
"We must not tell the people of the house what has happened," said our good-hearted student; "they would be most awfully offended, and there is no knowing what they might do with defenceless travellers in such an out-of-the-way spot."
"But we must pay them," I observed.
"Of course," agreed Grandpapa, "but we need not tell them that we have sat up on these chairs surrounded by a carpet of hay all night."