bother."

After dinner, scullery-Pekka brought in a large frozen block of
wood to split up into parea, and cast it from his shoulders on to
the floor with a thud which shook the whole room and set in motion
the oil in the lamp.

"Steady!" cries father; "what are you making that row for?"

"I brought in this pare-block to melt it a bit--nothing else will
do it--it is regularly frozen."

"You may save yourself the trouble then," said father, and he
winked at us.

"Well, but you can't get a blaze out of it at all, otherwise."

"You may save yourself the trouble, I say."

"Are no more parea to be split up, then?"

"Well, suppose I DID say that no more parea were to be split up?"

"Oh! 't is all the same to me if master can get on without 'em."

"Don't you see, Pekka, what is hanging down from the rafters
there?" When father put this question he looked proudly up at the
lamp, and then he looked pityingly down upon Pekka.

Pekka put his clod in the corner, and then, but not till then,