"Buy it, if you like; it is all the same to me if it is a pare
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 knew very well that
the other business could very well wait till Saturday, but she did
not say anything now either, but, "the sooner the better," thought
she.

And that same evening father brought in from the storehouse the
big travelling chest in which grandfather, in his time, had stowed
his provisions when he came from Uleaborg, and bade mother fill it
with hay and lay a little cotton-wool in the middle of it. We
children asked why they put nothing in the box but hay and a
little wool in the middle, but she bade us hold our tongues, the
whole lot of us. Father was in a better humor, and explained that
he was going to bring a lamp from the storekeeper, and that it was
of glass, and might be broken to bits if he stumbled or if the
sledge bumped too much.

That evening we children lay awake a long time and thought of the
new lamp; but old scullery-Pekka, the man who used to split up all
the parea, began to snore as soon as ever the evening pare was put
out. And he didn't once ask what sort of a thing the lamp was,
although we talked about it ever so much.

The journey took father all day, and a very long time it seemed to