Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian. Aho Juhani
priest took the money.
"This is now the third time, Thord, that you have come here on your son's account."
"But now I am through with him," said Thord, and folding up his pocket-book he said farewell and walked away.
The men slowly followed him.
A fortnight later, the father and son were rowing across the lake, one calm, still day, to Storliden to make arrangements for the wedding.
"This thwart is not secure," said the son, and stood up to straighten the seat on which he was sitting.
At the same moment the board he was standing on slipped from under him; he threw out his arms, uttered a shriek, and fell overboard.
"Take hold of the oar!" shouted the father, springing to his feet and holding out the oar.
But when the son had made a couple of efforts he grew stiff.
"Wait a moment!" cried the father, and began to vow toward his son.
Then the son rolled over on his back, gave his father one long look, and sank.
Thord could scarcely believe it; he held the boat still, and stared at the spot where his son had gone down, as though he must surely come to the surface again. There rose some bubbles, then some more, and finally one large one that burst; and the lake lay there as smooth and bright as a mirror again.
For three days and three nights people saw the father rowing round and round the spot, without taking either food or sleep; he was dragging the lake for the body of his son. And toward morning of the third day he found it, and carried it in his arms up over the hills to his gard.
It might have been about a year from that day, when the priest, late one autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door, carefully trying to find the latch. The priest opened the door, and in walked a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair. The priest looked long at him before he recognized him. It was Thord.
"Are you out walking so late?" said the priest, and stood still in front of him.
"Ah, yes! it is late," said Thord, and took a seat.
The priest sat down also, as though waiting. A long, long silence followed. At last Thord said:
"I have something with me that I should like to give to the poor; I want it to be invested as a legacy in my son's name."
He rose, laid some money on the table, and sat down again. The priest counted it.
"It is a great deal of money," said he.
"It is half the price of my gard. I sold it today."
The priest sat long in silence. At last he asked, but gently:
"What do you propose to do now, Thord?"
"Something better."
They sat there for a while, Thord with downcast eyes, the priest with his eyes fixed on Thord. Presently the priest said, slowly and softly:
"I think your son has at last brought you a true blessing."
"Yes, I think so myself," said Thord, looking up, while two big tears coursed slowly down his cheeks.
WHEN FATHER BROUGHT HOME
THE LAMP
BY
JUHANI AHO
From "Squire Hellman."
Translated by R. Nisbet Bain.
Published by the Cassell Publishing Co.
Copyright, 1893, by the Cassell Publishing Co.
W
HEN father bought the lamp, or a little before that, he said to mother:
"Hark ye, mother—ought n't we to buy us a lamp?"
"A lamp? What sort of a lamp?"
"What! Don't you know that the storekeeper who lives in the market town has brought from St. Petersburg lamps that actually burn better than ten päreä?[1] They've already got a lamp of the sort at the parsonage."
"Oh, yes! Is n't it one of those things which shines in the middle of the room so that we can see to read in every corner, just as if it was broad daylight?"
"That's just it. There's oil that burns in it, and you only have to light it of an evening, and it burns on without going out till the next morning."
"But how can the wet oil burn?"
"You might as well ask—how can brandy burn?"
"But it might set the whole place on fire. When brandy begins to burn you can't put it out, even with water."
"How can the place be set on fire when the oil is shut up in a glass, and the fire as well?"
"In a glass? How can fire burn in a glass—won't it burst?"
"Won't what burst?"
"The glass."
"Burst! No, it never bursts. It might burst, I grant you, if you screwed the fire up too high, but you're not obliged to do that."
"Screw up the fire? Nay, dear, you're joking—how can you screw up fire?"
"Listen, now! When you turn the screw to the right, the wick mounts—the lamp, you know, has a wick, like any common candle, and a flame too—but if you turn the screw to the left, the flame gets smaller, and then, when you blow it, it goes out."
"It goes out! Of course! But I don't understand it a bit yet, however much you may explain—some sort of new-fangled gentlefolk arrangement, I suppose."
"You'll understand it right enough when I've bought one."
"How much does it cost?"
"Seven and a half marks, and the oil separate at one mark the can."
"Seven and a half marks and the oil as well! Why, for that you might buy päreä for many a long day—that is, of course, if you were inclined to waste money on such things at all, but when Pekka splits them not a penny is lost."
"And you'll lose nothing by the lamp, either! Päre wood costs money too, and you can't find it everywhere on our land now as you used to. You have to get leave to look for such wood, and drag it hither to the bog from the most out-of-the-way places—and it's soon used up, too."
Mother knew well enough that päre wood is not so quickly used up as all that, as nothing had been said about it up to now, and that it was only an excuse to go away and buy this lamp. But she wisely held her tongue so as not to vex father, for then the lamp and all would have been unbought and unseen. Or else some one else might manage to get a lamp first for his farm, and then the whole parish would begin talking about the farm that had been the first, after the parsonage, to use a lighted lamp. So mother thought the matter over, and then she said to father:
"Buy it, if you like; it is all the same to me if it is a päre that burns, or any other sort of oil, if only I can see to spin. When, pray, do you think of buying it?"
"I thought of setting off to-morrow—I have some other little business with the storekeeper as well."
It was now the middle of the week, and mother