off, and gave to them all a sparkling smile.

There was joy on the hillside.

The summer wind told fairy tales from the south. Told of the trees
there, how tall they are, how dense the forests, and the earth, how it
steams in the heat. How the people are dark as shadows, and their eyes
flashing with light. And all the trees in the wood strained their ears
to listen.

The cuckoo perched in the red-blossomed pine, near the reddest cluster
of all. "It may be as lovely as lovely can be," cuckooed he, "but
nowhere does the heart throb with delight as in Finland forests in
spring, and nowhere is such music in the air."

All the hillside nodded approvingly.

In a little glade half-way down the slope some newly-felled firs lay
tumbled this way and that--their red-blossomed tops were trembling
still.

On one of the stems a youth was seated.

He was tall and slender, as the trees he had just felled. His hat
swung on a twig, coat and waistcoat were hung on a withered branch.
His strong brown chest showed behind the white of the open shirt; the
upturned sleeves bared his powerful, sunburnt arms. He sat leaning
forward, looking at his right arm, bending and stretching it, watching
the muscles swell and the sinews tighten under the skin.