It is a morning in September, a few days after the brothers’
adventurous journey had ended. They now sit on the clearing round a
boiling cauldron of meat. For two days they had watched at a distance
over the meat in the forest, but as no one came to remove it, it began
to look as though it was to be left to form a mighty carrion-heap.
Whereupon they decided to make use of the great stacks of meat in
the forest and to live nobly for a while round reeking flesh-pots.
They bore the carcases to their store-room, which became filled with
meat, while the rafters disappeared beneath hanging hides. And now,
spluttering and foaming, a gigantic cauldron of meat boiled on the
stump-covered clearing near the house, boiled almost without cease from
morning to night, and, glutted, the brothers’ stomachs laboured. Around
it they spent care-free, merry days; now eating, now relating tales and
legends, now sweetly sleeping again, heads pillowed on hummocks, while
the soughing forest re-echoed with their snoring.
The morning was fine, and limpid and blue stretched the sky, while from
the surrounding forests the booming of the fresh northeast wind could
be heard. Round their flesh-pot the brothers sprawled; some sitting on
stumps, some on the dry surface of the clearing, enjoying a prolonged
breakfast. There the dogs, too, lying on their stomachs, gorged
themselves on the fibrous, powerful flesh of the bulls. Cheeriness and
a deep-rooted calm shone on every face.
TIMO. Thanks to the master of Viertola for this meal too.
JUHANI. All thanks and honour to him!
AAPO. We shall count this feast dear yet. Viertola will
certainly not leave matters as they are.
JUHANI. The law is on our side; this the master is bound to
see and to leave the law alone. Let’s eat meat, brothers, and may it
lie lightly on our stomachs, for our backs are free. But more exercise,
boys, more exercise and marching is what we want; beef is strong food.
EERO. Let’s join hands and dance a brotherly ring-dance; let’s
buck and jump, and I’ll lay our tummies shrink.
JUHANI. We’re not going to skip here like hawks in summer,
but we can join in some other game. Ah! where are the madcap days of
my boyhood now? Brothers, let us hit the whirling disc once more as
we used to on Toukola’s dusty highways. Here’s a smooth clearing for
us; such stumps as are in our way we can tear up by the roots, and on
yon side we can take the smooth surface of the heath to lengthen our
playground with. Let’s form two sides, and each of those on the losing
side must swallow ten pounds of ox-flesh this evening.
TUOMAS. Agreed.
JUHANI. Ten pounds, brothers?
EERO. Just so! Ten pounds as punishment for those whom the
tough disc sweeps before it.
JUHANI. Three a-side would be fairest, but there are seven of
us.
LAURI. I’m out of it. I’d sooner hunt for useful timber in the
forest than run and sweat like a hair-brained nipper. Play your game,
I’m off into the forest with an axe under my arm.
Thus speaking, they ended their meal at last and set out to prepare
their playground. They shaped it to run across the clearing and for
some distance farther along the heath on the clearing’s eastern edge.
And a few hours later they stood ready for the game, sturdy birchwood
staves in their hands; and they stood divided into two sides: Juhani,
Simeoni and Timo on one side, and Tuomas, Aapo and Eero on the other.
The disc began to fly between them, and the forest echoed far around
as the staves smote against the hard wooden wheel that sped humming
backwards and forwards.
But deep in the backwoods Lauri walked, an axe under his arm. Slowly
he marched, looking carefully around him, and ever and anon his
progress was halted as his eye caught nodes, forked stems, twisted
trunks and tousled wind-tangles high in the crowns of dense birches
and pine-trees. He came to the tall stump of a storm-felled spruce;
he regarded it thoughtfully for a while, then began to chip a hole
in its side with his axe. This accomplished, he thought to himself:
happen next summer a redstart or a little mottled woodpecker’ll build
its nest in that hole. With this idea, he marked the spot carefully
and continued his journey again. But having wandered a while, he saw
a hanging birch, from the trunk of which an enormous node protruded,
rotund, big as a Christmas cake. He chopped it off and took it with
him, deciding that it would make a capacious scoop. He set off
wandering onward again, but soon his sharp eye had descried on the
edge of a tongue of rock a marvellously twisted juniper. Now what
would that make? he pondered, and striking once, twice, with his keen
axe, he felled the juniper. He lopped off the branches, regarded it
smiling for a moment, and resumed his journey, taking the juniper with
him. He heard the cow-bells from the villages and emitted a fearful
yell to scare away wolves from the neighbourhood. He yelled, and
the echoes flowed around in friendly answer. So he marched on until
he finally reached the heather-clad ridge of a hill, where he saw a
large wind-tangle dancing in a pine-tree’s crown, rocked by the cool
northeaster. He felled the pine, chopped off the tousled crown and sat
down to contemplate his find.
For long he sat there, thinking and examining the wind-tangle and
the node and the richly twisted juniper. ‘How had Nature formed
these things? What had bent the juniper into all those twists and
bends?’ And sinking down to the ground, he leaned his head against a
deserted, grass-grown ant-heap. Thence he stared at the tree-tops, at
the slow-sailing clouds, pondering over the build of the earth and
heaven; and from afar, from Impivaara clearing, the faint clash of the
disc-players’ staves was borne to his ears. Feeling at last a desire
to dispel all thought from his brain he decided to go to sleep; but
sleep seemed loth to approach him. Now what did Lauri usually do when
it chanced that the Goddess of Sleep proved coy? He would either fancy
himself a little mole that digs deep down in its peaceful underground
manor, to sleep at last on a bed of finest sand, or he would imagine
himself a thick-pelted bear, resting in his rough mossy cabin beneath
the spruce-roots, over which the blizzards of winter go roaring.
Thinking thus, he would almost always find sleep soon closing his eyes.
And so it was now, as he fancied himself a little mole, burrowing deep
in the womb of mother nature.
He slept, but sleep continued the fancies of his waking mind. His whole
body, so it seemed to him, shrank swiftly to that of a fine-haired
mole; his eyes became exceedingly small, and his palms swelled to
enormous gloves, until he was a mole, that burrowed beneath the
pine-roots, deep under the heath. There he burrowed and dug, digging
himself finally upward along the rotted pith of a tall pine until, when
he reached the topmost stem of its crown, he found himself sitting
in the middle of a wind-tangle in a soft, mossy pen. ‘This is a good
place to be in, here I will live for ever,’ he thought, peering with
little mole’s eyes out of his tiny chamber window. And he saw beneath
him a sombre world wrapped in the cheerless grey of the autumn eve.
He saw Impivaara’s beetling fell, and in measureless distance that
tore at the heart, he saw amidst the twilit forests the melancholy
cabin, and he saw his brothers, hitting the disc with the rector on
the misty, echoing heath. And a desire to weep bitterly assailed him,
but the tears seemed loth to come and only rolled restlessly at their
source. Towards Impivaara he looked: and over the clearing and for some
distance along the heath oxhides had been spread, blood-bespattered,
fresh, in a lengthy row, along which the disc danced humming. With
staves of birch, bent near the handles, the brothers bravely smote, but
the rector, with his sword of the spirit, smote still more bravely.
And this sword of the spirit was beaten of toughest iron, of old
horse-shoes; so boasted the rector himself, as he proudly waved his
weapon in the air, waved it and beat it against the oaken shield of
faith that dangled on his left breast.
With sweating brows they battled; backward and forward flew the disc
between them, and a great din and crashing was heard afar. But at last
the rector noticed that the disc was no ordinary disc at all, but a
red-backed a-b-c book, which the brothers were using as a disc. And
at that the rector became incensed; he cursed and swore, shouting a
thousand maledictions on the brothers’ heads. With his sword of the
spirit he pointed east, west, south and north, and shouted in a loud
voice ‘iiyah, iiyah!’ And from every quarter black clouds approached
in whirling tempests, approached mournful Impivaara at terrific speed.
Came whirlwinds in their thousands, and around the brothers they all
crashed together, sucking up the brothers into their embrace. And soon
six brothers spun high in the air on the wings of the winds, head over
heels in a confused jumble. So wrapped in dust and vapoury clouds,
they whirled giddily round, spun as a warping-mill spins when sped
by the spinner’s nimble hand. Terrified, Lauri in his mole’s attire
looked on from his wind-tangle, up in the crown of the bowing pine. He
saw emerge from the revolving mass, now a man’s hand, now a chin like
to Juhani’s mighty chin, and then again a coarse shock of hair would
flash by his glance. Then the rector suddenly smote his oaken shield of
faith with his sword, and at once the pillar of cloud moved; it began
speeding towards the pine-wood where Lauri rocked in his high cradle,
and at this his mole’s eyes opened wide. The raging whirlwind flew by
him, however, and suddenly sounding, and as suddenly dying away, the
brothers’ pitiable moans and yells were borne to his ears. Past him
it flew, with fear-awakening speed: the forest roared like a thousand
rapids, roared and crashed, and the pine in whose top Lauri sat in his
wind-tangle fell crackling; at which the man, horribly scared, awoke
from his dream. Shrieking loudly, he bounded up from his hummock,
shouting in a voice nigh to weeping: ‘Help, O God, the child of Man!’
For long he stared around him without immediately recollecting where
he was. But at last his thoughts settled down in their former channels
again, especially when he saw beside him his belongings: the twisted
juniper, the globular node and the wind-tangle, frilled like the
Turkish Sultan’s turban.
He began at last, axe under arm and the collected spoil on his
shoulder, to walk towards Impivaara, resolving nevermore to picture
himself an animal, God having once created him a thinking human being.
Thus meditating, he fared onward, and noted yet beside the stony path a
little birch that pleased his eye. ‘Now what would that make,--a good
fastening-pin,’ he decided, and striking once with his axe, he now had
the makings of a good fastening-pin on his back. With this addition
to his load he resumed his journey; and a while later he stood on the
heath, watching, morose and silent, the brothers’ merry pastime, the
fiery speeding of the disc. Hard they smote and ran, and the winners
were Tuomas, Aapo and Eero, who had already driven their opponents to
the eastern end of the ground. Then when the play-ground cleared for
the game had been won, the parties changed ends, and brothers Juhani,
Simeoni and Timo began retreating homeward, although resisting with all
their might. Difficult was it to meet Tuomas’s stroke as the disc flew
shrieking and dancing forward; difficult for the disc as it returned to
spin past Eero without being met by a stroke of his staff. And so they
battled and perspired, yelling at the top of their voices, and silent,
Lauri watched the struggle, with his booty from the forest on his back;
Killi and Kiiski watched too, ever sitting near Juhani and now and
again opening their jaws in a gaping yawn. The autumn sky stretched
bright above them, the fresh northeaster hummed in the pines, and in
the forest, perched on the side of a withered spruce, a red-crested,
yellow-eyed woodpecker hammered, sounding ever and anon its beautiful
high-pitched call.
JUHANI. Let the wheel come and he’ll feel my stick on his
forehead, just to let him know where he comes from.
TUOMAS. See that: there’s a stroke that’ll sweep you down to
Lake Ilvesjärvi.
JUHANI. That I’m not inclined to believe. Ay, here it lies,
little brother, nicely. But God’s lightning! look to thy shins, lad,
now. There!
TUOMAS. Hit back, smite it, Aapo!
AAPO. Flew like a swallow humming past me. But Eero’s staff
will ring again, that I know. Just as I said! Well hit, Eero. Good!
TUOMAS. Honour to Eero, high honour!
JUHANI. If it wasn’t for that cursed infant there at your
tail-end, you’d be deep in the forest by now, poor fellows!
TUOMAS. Step out to the disc, man, and don’t stand babbling
there like a child.
EERO. Heleiyah! Past him again.
AAPO. Not a single staff could touch it, not one.
TUOMAS. No more than they’d hit a shooting-star in the sky.
Brothers, what do you say?
EERO. They’ve little time even to whisper a word, running as
they are with drooping tails after their lost sheep.
JUHANI. What is Aapo thinking of over there? See to it, lad,
that thou hast not slaughtered my disc, so strong and hard.
TUOMAS. It bounced from the road into the heather yonder and
stopped, to my mind, near that little fir. Good morrow, Lauri! Why art
thou standing there so ill-tempered and silent?
EERO. What news from the forest, Lauri?
JUHANI. Ask him. There he stands like the former Heikki
Pajula, that man from Myllymäki, with a bunch of old boots on his back.
But Aapo, Aapo, thou dratted loon, what art fumbling at there?
TIMO. Hurry up, hurry up, brother Aapo.
JUHANI. Peering and seeking there like a cat after its
kitten.... ‘The wind it blows and the tree-tops sway....’ Move a little
out of my way, Kiiski-boy, or thy paws’ll be in danger. Dost thou hear
me? Get out of my way.
‘The wind it blows and the tree-tops sway,
My love’s voice echoes from far away.’
Ay, ay, poor Kiiski, pity won’t help here. And well thou knowest it.
Yonder thou canst sit and yawn as seems best to thee. Hay, my pet,
hey-hey-hey! There thou canst sit in peace and watch the disc fly. But
the devil’s loose if that disc isn’t found! Every man looking for it!
EERO. Here the thing is.
TUOMAS. Place it there in the vice of my finger and thumb.
AAPO. And let them have it from a man’s hand.
JUHANI. Just so! And here’s a man’s staff to meet it.
TUOMAS. Out of the way, or I’ll give thee a horn on thy
forehead.
AAPO. It flies past him.
EERO. Oh, my poor Juhani-brother! why dost thou whip the empty
air like that?
JUHANI. Strike at it, Simeoni, knock it down so that the earth
rings! Oh thou butter-fingered dolt! Now Timoson, see that thy staff
clashes! The devil in thy skin! Thou deservest five brace of stripes,
old slowcoach!
TUOMAS. Keep on marching! There’s no help for it.
So the strenuous game ended at last, and the sun sank westward into the
bosom of the mossy pines. Perspiring, the brothers now marched home,
both the victors, Tuomas, Aapo and Eero, and the vanquished; and last
of all came Lauri, a mighty burden on his shoulder. Arrived in the
home yard a cauldron full of meat was set on a fire and there allowed
to cook. Then they began their meal together; but Juhani, Simeoni and
Timo had to swallow a fearful quantity of beef, ten pounds, according
to the common decision when the game was begun. Without any mercy they
had to fulfil their task, Tuomas standing threateningly over them.
Nobly they chewed and swallowed, though often their stomachs rose in
revolt and their eyes became shot with blood. At last Simeoni and Timo
completed their measure and then, puffing and with hideously contorted
visages, made for the cabin without delay and dropped down on their
rushy couches to sleep. But for some time yet Juhani lingered over his
enormous meal, though he chewed and munched diligently. Silent, staring
stiffly downward at the forest, he sat on a stump and ate, filled with
wrath, particularly as Eero’s uncontrollable giggling was wafted to
his ears. Finally he too swallowed for the last time, and his features
swelled and darkened terribly, but down slid the piece at last from
his throat, only half-masticated. And then hastily, puffing, grinning
piteously and holding his stomach, he staggered to the cabin and fell
down to sleep on his bed of rushes, and the others followed him to
their nightly repose.
When at last they awoke in the morning from their deep sleep, the
juryman Mäkelä, accompanied by a witness, stood in the room. Sent
by the master of Viertola, he came to command their presence at the
Assizes to answer for the killing of the bulls. Without a word,
staring, the brothers heard the juryman’s command, then finally they
got up and dressed themselves, the confusion of sleep gradually leaving
them. Wrathfully Juhani scratched his poll and uttered in a growling
tone:
JUHANI. This is a hard case, for there were seven lives at
stake. And what are a thousand cattle compared to one man?
MÄKELÄ. The bulls wandered peaceably on Viertola land, in a
fenced enclosure.
JUHANI. But a bear, which is the enemy of cattle and man,
the foe of all authority, does not wander as peaceably when it comes
on Viertola soil, but will eat up both master and myself, and Mäkelä
added; and we are all, I hope, dearly-bought souls. Look you to that
point. Ay, ay, Mäkelä! there’s many a point, pitfall and paragraph
stored away back of my teeth, and with these I’ll stop up Viertola’s
mouth nicely yet. I’m in no mind to blab all of them now, but before
the judge I can let out one thing and another, as matters demand, aye,
matters and circumstances.
TIMO. We’re not exactly children in matters of law. Didn’t
we, Lord ha’ mercy, come forward like real gentlemen in that mighty
lawsuit that Kaisa Koivula started to get support for her child? I
still remember how they shouted: ‘Juhani, son of Juhani Jukola and his
younger brother Timotheus!’
JUHANI. Timo, shut up, shut up this minute like a young mole.
Yes, Mäkelä, the matter is as I just said.
MÄKELÄ. You will not even try then to repay Viertola the
damage voluntarily?
JUHANI. Not a penny, not a penny, not a single Crown’s penny!
We have justice on our side, and the victory’ll be ours at last, though
I were to rot.
MÄKELÄ. Yet I’ve heard that meat is eaten here every day as
though ’twas always All Saints’ Day. What is the meat you gorge so
unstintingly?
JUHANI. Beef, beef, the juicy meat of Viertola’s bulls. And it
isn’t exactly our habit to gorge, but to eat ordinary-like, as much as
a hungry Christian belly will hold.
MÄKELÄ. So you touched the meat anyhow, with which, as you
yourself said, you have nothing to do.
JUHANI. The meat would otherwise have spoiled and spread the
itch and scab, plagues and sores round the whole of Finland. We saved
the country from this ruin. And again shouldst thou ask us why we did
not, for the surer freedom of our skins, bury the meat in the depths of
the earth,--which would be a truly daft question--but if thou so askest
us, why we would answer thus: We did not want to commit so great a sin
as to rob our Fatherland and those set in authority over us of such
strong, juicy fare as beef, especially if we remember that this year
too so many lads have been forced to chew pinebark like goats.
MÄKELÄ. Well, to speak truth, you did right in taking what
Viertola proudly refused. That is the answer to that question; but to
come to the kernel of the case, the payment of damages, I’m afraid
it’ll be taken from you in the end.
JUHANI. Not in play, not in play. Sooner both house and lands
can go, down to the last corner-stone.
MÄKELÄ. I have done my duty and given you my opinion of the
case. Farewell!
JUHANI. Give us thy opinion of another matter. What is the
rector thinking of us these days?
MÄKELÄ. In that matter the world chatters fearfully, but
there’s little worth trusting to in the whisper of rumour. But one
thing I can with certainty assure you, namely, that the rector is in
lively correspondence with the Bishop regarding you and that soon fifty
Cossacks will be sent to the parish on the Bishop’s behalf.
JUHANI. Good!
MÄKELÄ. Ay, fifty horse and men.
JUHANI. Good! Finnish lads have broken Cossack pikes before
now.
MÄKELÄ. A sorry matter all the same. Still it’s not as bad as
rumour would have it. Could this be true now? ‘A company of Cossacks,
a dusting company of lanced Cossacks, with knouts and all’. Ay, why
should any one believe such foolish rumours. There’ll be fifty of them,
no more.
JUHANI. Let ’em come.
MÄKELÄ. Dost thou say so? Rascal! And here I’d give five
crowns to escape them, to escape the shame of it. What nonsense! The
military to our parish for the sake of seven men? Nonsense, nonsense!
But such is our Bishop’s plan.
JUHANI. All’s well!
MÄKELÄ. Ill, ill, devilishly ill. But fare ye well now!
JUHANI. God protect thee, Mäkelä! and thou, Taavetti Karila,
go in God’s name and peace.
TUOMAS. Would there be any truth in it?
JUHANI. Think, lads! Forty bulls and a company of Cossacks!
Take me to thy bosom, Ilvesjärvi!
AAPO. I doubt greatly....
JUHANI. Forty bulls and a battalion of Cossacks, knouts and
all, goggle-eyed knouts! Take me to thy shining bosom, lake!
AAPO. Calm thyself, man, and stop raving.
JUHANI. Thou heardest what he said?
LAURI. He lied. I saw that from his eyes, although the old
chap tried to look grave. He lied; that I’ll swear to.
AAPO. A great rogue, that Mäkelä. Let Cossacks be set afoot
for Karja’s robbers and Nurmijärvi bandits, and not for honourable men,
without a single black mark, in their papers yet. But Mäkelä’s a great
rogue.
TUOMAS. And yet always a man of honour.
AAPO. A man of honour, honesty itself, but he can jest
whenever he is so inclined, and so finely, finely, that you’d never
notice what he was at before you’re kicking in his net. Ah! if there
were a cold heart and an evil mind in that breast, he’d beat the devil
himself in plots of darkness. But now he desires and does only good,
though he does play pranks now and then right madly. Ah thee! how well
thou didst arrange thy words and sentences in this tale too. It was
hardly that I wasn’t taken in a little myself.
JUHANI. I, poor lad, was scared almost to death at the prattle
of that great rogue; but now I see that it was all pure lies. Cossacks
to this place? What next? He-he!
AAPO. But it was a big enough shock on a fasting stomach.
Hasten now, Lauri, and make a fire under that oven-stone; for my belly
says that meal-time draws nigh.
Lauri went out on to the clearing, kindled a blazing fire, and after
a time the others came out of the cabin, placing themselves round the
stone; and once more a cauldron of meat was cooked for breakfast. They
began their meal, but for Juhani, Simeoni, and Timo beef had lost its
flavour that day.
EERO. Eat meat, boys. Juhani, have some beef.
JUHANI. Eat it thyself.
TIMO. The fatness of these bulls doesn’t please me, however
much I try.
SIMEONI. I feel a shudder go through my sinful frame whenever
I turn my eyes towards the pot yonder.
TIMO. Shall I ever eat fresh meat again? Perish the thought!
JUHANI. To swallow ten pounds of beef into one’s stomach! Ten
pounds! Why, it’s wolfish. But now I’ve had enough, and the path of my
life is closed, now that my appetite for meat is gone. And yet it is
meat, meat, that we have to depend on down here. But the cauldron there
is as though full of black toads to me now. Ah! a little more and I’d
cry!
TIMO. What’s the use of crying? Believe me, I haven’t wiped my
eyes since at mother’s grave-side; when the old girl was hidden in a
hole in the earth, then I blubbered a bit, sure. At other times, when
hard luck seems to threaten a poor lad, what I always think is: nothing
fiercer than death can come of it, anyhow. Why be cast down? Time will
bring new advice.
JUHANI. Right! That’s something I’ll show you just now. I
will, deuce take me! In this skull of mine a spark of an idea lit up
just now. Eigh, eigh! Even a thick head, even the thickest head isn’t
quite the stupidest thing. Eigh, eigh! The spark of my idea is alight.
TIMO. What kind of spark?
JUHANI. Eigh, eigh!
TIMO. What kind of spark?
JUHANI. Maybe every screw is in its place here. Eigh, eigh!
TIMO. Hast thou found a way out?
JUHANI. Here, Lord love us, we have tarry stumps around us in
thousands like black goblins.
TIMO. Ay, that we have. But what blessing is a tarry stump to
us?
JUHANI. Oh poor soul of little faith. From the stumps we can
boil hissing tar, from the tar pitch, shiny black lumps, for which
we can get money. It’s a trick I know as well as Rajamäki’s Mikko.
But thanks to Eero, who sang of him yesterday, and thus brought this
stump-idea into my head; for there’s no other way for us to make money.
Even the game in our forests grows less and less, and turned into money
wouldn’t bring in enough even for bread and other grub, now that I
have, as it seems, said an eternal farewell to meat. But now tar and
pitch will repay everything. Let us take after Mikko, take after Mikko.
TIMO. Let’s do so. But then we ought to add Mikko’s other job
to it, if our new life is to keep us in bread. I myself know that a cat
is put into a leather sleeve and a dog into a sprat-barrel, to get a
proper hold of them, but there’s lots of other wisdom needed too. And
the job is looked on as in some way shameful. Let us remember that too.
JUHANI. Go to Hell with thy gelder’s knife! I’ll burn tar, I
will, and boil pitch; and thou’lt see yet how money can be made from
chunks of pitch. Aapo, what dost thou think of my idea?
AAPO. I’ve turned it over in my head, and it’s not without
sense, but it isn’t going to bring in enough bread. Still less can we
go to law with rich men on the strength of our lumps of pitch. And woe
to us if we lose in this matter in the end!
JUHANI. Ay, ay, but what are we to do? Every man seeks his
right down here.
AAPO. Let’s come to some agreement and leave the law aside.
JUHANI. Boy! how are we to appease the fiery master of
Viertola and pay for his bulls?
AAPO. Pitch won’t be enough for that, nor tar, nor game, which
grows less at an alarming rate. But look now, how one thought springs
from another and one word from another. When thou spokest of tarry
stumps, there came into my mind the boundless backwoods of Jukola, its
dense birch-woods, pine-woods, and spruce-woods. In a few days seven
men could fell many acres of forest for sowing. We could burn the
undergrowth and branches and sow the ground, and later reap and take
the harvest to Viertola as the price of his bulls, leaving, however,
a part in the store-room for our own needs. And that means bread for
those whom meat and blood terrify. And to some back to Viertola, if the
first crop is not enough to pay for the bulls, why a second will do it,
and in any case a third. But until the grain waves in our new clearing,
we can squeeze mother nature with all our might; and for you three,
meat will yet taste well. We can go on thus for two years; but when a
heavy-eared harvest stands in our clearing, then we can build frames
for our ricks and hammer together a threshing-barn, and well, that’ll
be like working on a real farm. But if we decide to begin such a task,
one or two of us must go quickly to talk over the matter with Viertola,
and I do believe he’ll be appeased and agree to await the harvest from
our clearing; for they say he is a somewhat worthy fellow.
TUOMAS. That’s advice worth thinking over.
JUHANI. Sure, ’tis worth it. It’s advice from a man’s skull
and not from the little nob of a daft woman.
AAPO. Let us think this over, and tomorrow what’s decided is
decided.
The day passed, night came and another day dawned and the brothers
decided to follow brother Aapo’s advice. Two of them, Juhani and
Aapo, set out to speak the language of peace with the hasty master of
Viertola. And soon the dreaded master was all mildness and was pleased
to await compensation for his loss from a mighty clearing. And why
should he not have agreed to a plan by which many and various profits
were offered him from the stately Jukola forests? Highly satisfied, the
brothers returned from the manor, to bring home the glad tidings.
Two days went by again and a third, and the brothers set out for the
forest in a body, with gleaming axes on their shoulders, while,
burdened with a brush-hook, and old broken sickle, Eero brought up the
rear. A wide hill-side of dense pines, sloping southward and topped by
a grove of tall trees, was fixed on for the clearing. Whereafter they
began the felling of the forest; axes clashed, the forest rang, and
with a great crashing pine fell on pine. Always in the van hastened
Eero, cutting down the tough pliant shoots with his hook. So fell many
an acre of luxuriant forest, and all around spread the fresh scent of
new shavings and of green, coniferous branches. And soon on the sunny
slope, Impivaara clearing lay ready, enormously large, so that its like
had hardly been seen before. And the work had been accomplished within
five September days. Whereafter they reposed sweetly in their cabin
again, snoring for three nights and three days. But when their bodies
were sufficiently rested, they fared forth to hunt in the yellowing
forests. Over echoing hills they wandered; they strode through dismal
backwoods, thinning with well-aimed bullets the herds of Tapiola for
provision during the coming winter. Greatly, however, had the game
begun to diminish in the lands around Impivaara; and it was high time
for the brothers to seek new fields for the supply of their daily bread.
Winter came, snow hid the ground, keen winds circled round the
clearing, sweeping up drifts against the cabin’s walls. But within the
cabin, the brothers wallowed in the stifling heat of the platform,
resting from the many labours and dangers of the preceding summer.
Diligently they bathed, whipping their limbs in the grateful heat
with soft bunches of twigs. Roaring the steam rose from the hot
stones, spreading in rolling clouds around the room, to escape at last
through the cracks and disappear in the cold, shrinking air, under
the melancholy, pallid sky. So, stretched on their rush couches, the
drowsy men lived through their days and nights. There on many a winter
night they looked through their tiny window on the flashing, livid
northern lights. At such times an arc of light, visible afar, shone on
the mountain’s rim, beyond the bearded spruce. There, fluttering and
silent, the play of light was lit and extinguished and lit again; fire
pursued fire, stretching from the pale gateway of the north up to the
dome of the heavens, and at times a faint light quivered over all the
sky. From the platform of their cabin the brothers watched the play of
light, marvelling and speculating hither and thither over the origin
and cause of this solemn spectacle. But they conjectured and pondered
in vain.
Now and again, however, they went out when the brief day dawned into
the playground of the winds, fared forth on well-greased skis across
the rime-clad forests. And as luck stood them by, they bagged now a
lively heath-grouse, now a grey-clad squirrel, now some other denizen
of the woods. In the back-woods they chanced on the round tracks of
a glutton that ran in a pretty line along the crust of snow, and at
once the ardour of the dogs rose to boiling-point, showing that the
animal could not be far away. Soon the whining bark of Killi and
Kiiski was heard and the sound of the chase moving swiftly onward;
and swiftly the brothers hastened on behind. Across the forest they
swept, out of the forest up a stony hill; and from the crags the
snow and moss were whipped high up into the air. Ahead fled the
glutton, its eyes brightly flashing, bright as two mirrors held up
to the sun. The screaming fury of the dogs pursued it, and with the
swishing of skis the seven men. Now along Kamaja’s lofty ridge they
galloped wildly, headed towards the southwest, whence the dying star
of day glowed through the spruce to meet them; and on the right the
low-lying northward lands rang with the chase, and on the left the
low-lying southward lands echoed the sound, as Killi and Kiiski gave
mouth to their fire-breathing eagerness. But suddenly the medley of
sound was still, as the crook-clawed glutton, just when the danger
was greatest, climbed swiftly into the top of a tree. The spruce took
it lovingly to her bosom, helpless, however, to ward off the pursuing
death. The dogs raged, looking with burning eyes lustfully upward,
whence a low growling was heard; and the spruce wrathfully shook its
mane, threatening the pursuers. Then with a violent crash and din the
brothers burst into view on their skis, with cheeks glowing like fire
and heaving bosoms. And Tuomas said: ‘Keep back the dogs now, brothers,
from starting a dangerous fight, in which their bellies would soon be
ripped open.’ He said this, and the others quickly seized the dogs by
their furry coats, while Tuomas aimed his gun and fired. Down from its
shelter tumbled the glutton, bleeding, and immediately the screaming
dogs began struggling wildly to be at their prey, though without
succeeding. The glutton lay on the snow-covered ground, kicking and
squirming, his sharp claws raging madly everywhere around him, until a
second ball, piercing his brain, cut short his agony, and he lay still.
Threateningly the spruce shook its locks once more, scattering downward
from its crown a shower of glittering snow to hide its dying son, as
in the hot stream of his blood the keen life fled from his heart, to
dissolve in a vapour into the air. And thus ended a mighty chase on
Kamaja’s spruce-clad hill, whither Impivaara Fell showed faintly in the
northwest, with the stump-covered clearing palely gleaming at its base.
Thither the brothers now merrily bent their steps with their spoil.
So in the rime-clad forests they ski’d up hill and down, ski’d over
level plains; and the men’s open and bronzed breasts shone afar. And so
they passed their time; for the most, however, in the cabin’s warmth,
while the rayless, drowsy sun lingered in the sweltering lands of the
south. Far indeed had it travelled, the burning source of life; one day
it hardly lifted even its brow from the blue bosom of the forests. But
with that it turned again and began once more its journey northward.
Summer came, the cutting was prepared for firing; the logs were rolled
away and in the calm, hot days a mighty sea of branches died, and the
time for burning drew nigh. Without sending word to their neighbours,
without informing a soul, the brothers set out to burn over their
clearing. Fire was set to the brushwood and a great flame rose roaring
towards the heavens, and soon the brown smoke rolled right to the edge
of the clouds. Onward spread the fire, and in the bright light of the
sun the litter burned to ashes. But the mere branches and litter of the
clearing failed to satisfy it, and with a thunderous noise it charged
at last into the pillared halls of the pines. Then the brothers,
terror-stricken, hastened to fight the unfettered element with all
their might: they swept and smote at the heathery ground, and their
brooms of spruce whizzed and whined through the air, as they fell
heavily on the ground, till all the sandy hill-side boomed. Yet the
raging flames seemed little dismayed at this, they sped, still hurrying
swiftly, onward. Cried Juhani at last in a loud voice: ‘trousers in
hand, every man; wet them in the spring and beat the fire with ’em’!
Hastily tearing off their trousers, they dipped them in a brimming,
cold spring and began beating, whipping the burning surface of the
heath. High into the air flew the hot ashes and the soot, the earth
thundered as though a host of riders had galloped at full speed over
it; and at length confusion seized the angry flames. Black as niggers
and bathed in perspiration, the men collapsed weakly on to the ground,
puffing, sobbing after their heated game.
But the clearing had burned cleanly and was sown and ploughed, harrowed
with a primitive wooden harrow with the combined strength of seven men,
and finally a stout fence was built up round it, and before the coming
of winter an excellent young crop had sprouted there. And in the fence
suitable openings were left, in which heavy snares were set, to the
death of numerous hares.