Pekka was standing at the chopping block and didn't even turn his head, although we all called to him with one voice to come and see how the lamp was lit. We children plunged headlong into the room in a body.
But at the door we stood stock-still. The lamp was already burning there beneath the rafters so brightly that we couldn't look at it without blinking.
"Shut the door; it's rare cold," cried father, from behind the table.
"They scurry about like fowls in windy weather," grumbled mother from her place by the fireside.
"No wonder the children are dazed by it, when I, old woman as I am, cannot help looking up at it," said the innkeeper's old mother.
"Our maid also will never get over it," said the magistrate's step-daughter.
It was only when our eyes had got a little used to the light that we saw that the room was half full of neighbors.
"Come nearer, children, that you may see it properly," said father, in a much milder voice than just before.
"Knock that snow off your feet, and come hither to the stove; it looks quite splendid from here," said mother, in her turn.
Skipping and jumping, we went toward mother, and sat us all down in a row on the bench beside her. It was only when we were under her wing that we dared to examine the lamp more critically. We had never once thought that it would burn as it was burning now, but when we came to sift the matter out we arrived at the conclusion that, after all, it was burning just as it ought to burn. And when we had peeped at it a good bit longer, it seemed to us as if we had fancied all along that it would be exactly as it was.