THE END OF AUTUMN
THE next day Maja had to stay in the house to help while her mother and
sister baked, for they were to have a _talko_, that is, neighbors had
been invited over to help with the last of the harvesting. "Have lots of
good things to eat," Juhani called as he followed his father out to help
in one of the fields. Here a number of peasants were driving long poles
into the ground at regular intervals; to these they fastened eight
outstretched arms, the ends of which were curved upwards. On these arms
hay that had been cut with sickles was carefully arranged that it might
dry.
While this was being done, the grain that had been dried some time
before was being baked in an outside oven or kiln not far from the hay
barn, a big long building with a corrugated roof.
This baking makes the Finnish grain in demand for seed in other
countries, for it drives away the damp and kills all insects that might
injure the germ.
By evening all the work was finished, and the merry group of peasant men
and women who had given their help trooped, singing, to the house. A big
supper awaited them and as they sat down, the men on one side of the
table, the women on the other, all showed the splendid appetites which
the work in the fields had given them.
As soon as the supper was over, the floor was cleared, and all joined in
dancing the national dance, called the _jenka_, during which a warmth of
feeling was displayed that belied their reputation for being stolid, and
that no stranger, who might have seen the men and women on their way to
church the day before, would have believed possible.
After this the weather grew less pleasant; the sky was often dull and
overcast; cold raw winds began to blow and there was much fog and sleet.
During this time there was a certain flurry in the farm house, for
Juhani, young as he was, had gained his father's permission to accompany
an uncle to a lumber camp some distance to the north.
At the first fall of snow they left. It was a long drive they had, one
that grew colder after the middle of the day. The air, which was very
still, had a frostiness to it that nipped Juhani's nose and face. But
neither he nor his uncle grumbled. The faces of both had a peculiarly
similar look of patient endurance. It was not until toward evening that
they came to a rolling swampy country where a big body of woodmen were
already at work at the rude shelters that were to form the camp. For
one night a batch of new men had to lie around the camp fire, turning
one side, then the other to the heat, for there were not enough huts yet
built.
Juhani was put to work almost at once in picking up chips and doing all
sorts of odds and ends, for he had only been allowed to go on condition
that he was willing to make himself useful. Later he was regularly sent
alone twice a week through the forest to a peasant farm for milk and
eggs. The coming and going for these took all of a day. Sometimes the
forest was dark and silent; at other times birds called to him, and wild
animals, strangely tame, would peep out from the snow-covered brush at
him.
Once a merry squirrel enticed him into an old overgrown path. He
continued to follow it even after he had lost track of the squirrel
until he came to two branches, one of which he decided led in the
direction of his destination.
After wandering about for an hour and finding that the trees and the
brush were growing denser and denser he grew somewhat alarmed and tried
to retrace his steps.
He soon found that this was impossible. Here it occurred to him that if
he could get to the top of a tree he might have a better idea of where
he was and what to do. So dropping his pail, he scrambled up the nearest
willow. This was not high enough to give much of an outlook, and,
getting down again, he cast longing eyes on a tall fir with no low
branches.
With difficulty he dragged a small uprooted juniper to it and placing it
against the trunk, with its help he managed to reach the lowest branch.
It was then an easy task to climb to the top of the tree.
There was a very fair outlook from the top but no sign of the farmhouse
for which he was bound. There was one thing comforting however. It was
that at some distance away something glittered like water.
With a grunt Juhani let himself down and then stood in thought. Only for
a moment did he allow himself to do this. He was too well aware of the
shortness of the days to dally. Drawing his _pukko_ (knife) he began to
hew his way through the thick underbrush, over the springy soil, in the
direction of what he knew must be the lake.
Now and then fallen tree trunks had to be scaled. Twice his feet caught
in tangled vines and threw him. Several times he had to take the time to
climb trees to assure himself that he was going in the right direction.
And all the time he had the consciousness that night was descending.
It was already dusk when he reached the lake where, to his great relief,
he recognized the spot by means of a big bowlder as being within half a
mile of camp.
He saw, however, that in a very few minutes it would be too dark to go
further. The only thing to do was to wait until the moon rose. So
gathering together as much of the brush as he could, he started it
burning and then lay down before it to try to get a little rest.
Despite the fire, which continually had to be replenished, it was very
cold and he found it necessary to turn constantly first one side, then
the other towards the flames to be at all comfortable.
At last the fire went out and there was nothing left for Juhani to do
except sit with his back to the trunk of a nearby tree and wait. When
the moon came out, it was a very stiff boy who arose and followed
stumblingly the banks of the lake to camp.
Here he found a group of men with his Uncle in the lead, getting ready
to start a hunt for him. As soon as he had stammered out his story to
his Uncle the latter shook him angrily by the shoulder and ordered him
to bed. "Don't you ever try anything of the kind again; at least not
while you are on an errand for me," he called after him. And Juhani
never did.
The boy won the favor of a driver of one of the short sledges on which
the cut-down trees, rough hewn with axes and with the bark peeled off,
were drawn, and he sometimes had a ride with him to the lake where men
stalked the logs on the banks. On these trips, although he said nothing,
he hardly knew whether he admired most how the driver guided the horses
over the difficult ground or the intelligence of the alert little
Finnish horses themselves.
Sometimes, instead of these trips, he had an opportunity to watch the
actual cutting down of the trees. He would sometimes quiver in sympathy
as a tree quivered before dashing down against the other trees, perhaps
remaining suspended a moment, then coming with a crash to the ground
and raising a flurry of snow.
Once a tree was down it was ready to be cleared of branches and then
sawed into logs.
In the evening the spring journey of the logs, when they would be
floated down the lake and out to sea, was often discussed. Juhani
learned how men with long hooks were stationed at the narrow or rocky
places on the water to keep the logs from getting blocked. This was
difficult and often dangerous. Sometimes it led to loss of life.
While on the lake, the logs would be collected and chained together to
form great rafts. Several of these would be fastened behind each other
and drawn by a small tug. On these rafts the men would build themselves
little huts on which they would live, for it is slow work to get the
logs from the forests to the mills. Indeed it almost always takes one or
two summers at least.
Sometimes instead of these stories, the men would sing rough songs that
sounded out there in the wilds more weird and melancholy than they
really were. Sometimes they discussed the future of Finland. There was
one fellow among them to whom Juhani loved to listen. He remembered long
the man's reply to a particularly pessimistic statement. "Our future
depends on ourselves. Have we not the sea? Does it not stand for power
and freedom? Shame, I say, on those who do not see it!"
Things in camp went along quietly enough until near the end of the
season, when two of the men had a fight which might have ended seriously
had they not been separated in time, for both had drawn their _pukkos_
(knives).
Before Juhani left for home the driver invited him to come on a trip
much further east than they were stationed. His uncle consented. It gave
Juhani an opportunity to see the very primitive and wasteful
agricultural methods that are still practiced in Finland in
out-of-the-way places, that of burning down the forest to fertilize the
land.
They spent the first night with the owner of a place on which this was
done. He did his best to entertain them well.
After they had had supper the family gathered around the big rude
fireplace, and while the fire crackled and a drink of some kind was
passed around the talk drifted to the future prospects of the country.
Then the peasant proprietor told of the time when the deposed Tzar of
Russia, Nicholas II, through the Manifesto of February fifteenth, 1899,
had tried to deprive Finland of most of her independence. "I heard
through my young son who had just returned from further South, that
signatures for a petition to the Tzar were being sought. 'They shall not
lack mine,' I told my wife. It was bitterly cold even for one used to
severe months of blinding snow, but I put on my skis and made my way
through the dense forest in the face of a harsh wind, to the nearest
settlement Here I learned that a messenger gathering signatures had just
left. Without stopping for food or drink, I followed the direction he
had taken through a frozen swamp and came up with him just before
nightfall. And there, with nothing to be seen but snow around us, I
signed the paper and returned to the settlement while he went on for
another hour to the neighboring hamlet."
"I know of a case to match that somewhat," said the driver. "After the
Tzar's Manifesto, a well-to-do farmer, who lived too far away to go to
Helsingfors, wrote a petition himself to the Tzar, had it signed by the
family, servants and those nearest, and then forwarded it."
Here the old grandmother, an intelligent looking peasant woman, with a
brown plaid shawl tightly pinned around her neck, took the lead in the
conversation, harking back to older times when she had known Elias
Lönnrot who made the folk songs he gathered into a whole as the great
Finnish epic, the "Kalevala." This was evidently a favorite subject with
her. "I was only a young girl," she said, "when he came as a physician
to Kajana, which is a place of which it was then said there were two
streets, 'Along one go pigs when it's wet, along the other the
inhabitants when it's dry.' Lönnrot was a strong fine fellow, very
gentle. People used to say he would cry if he happened to kill a fly. He
was rather careless about his clothes. I met him one day just as he was
starting on one of his searches for folk songs. He was dressed like a
peasant, with a short pipe in his mouth and a staff in his hand. A small
flute hung from his button-hole, while a valise and gun were slung on
his back. After he came back we spoke of nothing for weeks except his
adventures. In one place he was taken for a tramp and found it
impossible to secure any sort of vehicle to take him on his way. In
another village the people thought him a wizard. They wouldn't give him
any food. He remembered that an eclipse of the sun would take place that
day. 'I'll make the sun die,' he said, 'if you don't attend to my
wants.' The people laughed and hooted, but when the sun actually did
disappear they were badly frightened and begged him on their knees to
make it come back and brought him all kinds of good things to eat."
"It seems to me," said her son reflectively, "that Lönnrot published
something else besides the 'Kalevala.'"
"Indeed he did," said the grandmother quickly, proud of her knowledge,
"why, I've taught you many a verse given in the _Kanteletaar_ (the
Daughter of the Kantele). It contains about seven hundred ancient songs
and ballads."
Juhani and the driver were somewhat surprised at hearing all this at
such a far off place. They would have gladly continued the conversation
had it not been necessary to retire early to be prepared for the journey
to the north on the morrow.