THE DECEMBER VACATION
LONG before the coldest weather came, everything was made ready for a
six or eight months' winter. The double windows were surrounded by
cotton wool and gummed paper to keep out the draughts. The open rafters
of the kitchen now served as a store room. From them hung dried fish,
smoked pork, and even several weeks' supply of rye bread in large hard
cakes with a hole in the middle of each.
As soon as the December holidays came, parties at neighboring houses
followed each other in quick succession. Sometimes these were ski-ing
parties of school children with the teacher in charge. Sometimes the
older folks gathered, and sometimes whole families. There was always a
dinner, and almost always dancing and the playing of games.
One day Juhani's whole family went to the home of a friend who lived
fully ten miles distant. It was only about nine in the morning when they
started in two low sleighs. The air was crisp and so still that it did
not seem to stir, the sky intensely blue, as they hurried over
snow-covered roads, past many forests, each tree bright in its pearly
gown; past two farms whose buildings looked strikingly red and bare
against their white background.
As they neared their destination, a bright-looking boy, accompanied by a
kind of wolf hound, raced up on his skis to meet them. "You're just in
time," he shouted when sufficiently near, "to help me make a fox trap.
An old scamp of a fox has been after our chickens and I mean to get
him."
"Where are you going to set the trap?" called back Juhani eagerly.
"I'm going to show you," responded the other, and as Juhani dismounted
from the sleigh, the two made their way to some distance back of the
barn. Here Juhani's friend had everything ready. First he drove a long
stake into the ground. This stake was forked at the end with the central
prong the longest. "Feel the edges," he said to Juhani.
Juhani did so and almost cut his finger. The edges were as sharp as
knives.
"I don't understand yet," he said, putting his hand up to his mouth,
"how that can catch a fox."
"Wait," returned his friend, and running to the barn he soon returned
with bait which he placed at the top.
"The old fellow will jump at that," he explained, "and catch his paw
between the prongs. You bet it'll hold him fast, too. There are a lot of
them around," he continued as they made their way to the house, "and
we're a good deal put out by them. Grandfather says, however, that it
is nothing to the time when father first moved here. Then there were
wolves and bears. I'd like to meet a bear. Do you remember the lines:
'Otso apple of the forest
With thy honey paws so curving'?
Grandfather says that they used to use charms to help them when they
went hunting. Do you know what he likes to talk about better than bear
hunting? It's seal shooting; perhaps because he did it only once. It
wasn't here, of course, but on the frozen sea. He says he lay flat on a
sled in front of which he had fastened a white sail so that the seal
would take it for a part of the ice around. He pushed the sled with his
feet, and, when near enough, shot."
"That was when he was a fisherman," conjectured Juhani.
His friend laughed. "Please don't use the past tense in regard to him.
Why, he's still a fisherman. Only last year he had a fishing adventure
that would make some people's hair rise. You look as if you didn't
believe. Come, I'll get him to tell you about it."
They found the old man sitting in a sunny workroom mending a basket. He
was quite ready to talk. "I don't belong here," he said, "but to the
east end of the gulf. You say that you want to hear what happened last
spring. Well, a whole camp of us went out together to fish through the
ice. That's done every year. We took tents and firewood and food and
expected to stay a long time. It was all right for a while and we got a
lot of fish. But the spring thaw came earlier than we expected; we had
fellows watching, but they were careless, and the first thing we knew
the ice had cracked and I and one other were carried out to sea on a
great ice floe. Our companions saw us when we were about twelve yards
away, but they couldn't do anything for they hadn't any boats. We
couldn't do anything but let the wind and wave carry us wherever they
wished. I had a bottle of rum in my pocket and a big hunk of hard bread.
My companion had nothing but a plug of tobacco. These three things we
divided and lived on for two days. At last we drifted to firm ice, from
which, stiff as we were, we managed to make our way to the mainland."
"You don't expect to go this year, do you?" asked Juhani.
"Yes, I do. Right after the holidays. Why shouldn't I?" asked the old
man sharply. "I wasn't drowned, was I?"
Right here they were fortunately called into the house. When they
reached it, Juhani at once noticed that it was some one's name day, for
the doors were prettily decorated with boughs. A big meal awaited them
indoors, and here Juhani found that the decorations were in honor of
the mother for her chair was also wreathed. He at once went up to her
and offered his congratulations, which the other members of his family
had had a chance to do before.
A long time was spent at the table. When the meal was finished each
person went up to the host and hostess, shook hands with them and said
"Tack," thank you.
Juhani's friend next took him for a visit to the farm's carpenter shop,
where he showed him the posts and gates he was making. "Are you going to
have the shoemaker come to your place this year?" he asked. "We expect
him here next week to make us enough shoes to last the year through. The
tailor isn't coming till January. Two weeks ago we had the harness
maker; I had to help him, and I tell you, I'm glad the harness is
mended."
Here he thought of something else with which to entertain his guest.
"Why, you haven't seen my new toboggan slide. Let's go quick."
They stopped at the barn to get a sled and then had several merry rides
down a short but steep hill. This was followed by snow-balling and fancy
ski jumping until time to bid each other good-by.
A few days following this pleasant visit, Juhani, Maja and the older
sister attended a "Riddle Evening" at the home of a much nearer
neighbor. Here quite a number of young people were gathered, each trying
to be called the Master Riddle Guesser. Whoever couldn't answer three
riddles in succession had to play the fool. He was seated in a chair in
the middle of the room. One of the girls handed over her embroidered
apron and it was tied around his waist. Another took off the kerchief
around her neck and it was put on his head. Still another lent her glass
beads. A saucer was then held over a candle flame until soot collected
and with this his face was painted. The jolly company circled around him
jeering and then forming a procession solemnly escorted him from the
room and bade him study out the answers that he had not been able to
guess.