looked up at the lamp.

"It's a lamp," says father, "and when it burns you don't want any
more pare light."

"Oh!" said Pekka, and, without a single word more, he went off to
his chopping-block behind the stable, and all day long, just as on
other days, he chopped a branch of his own height into little
fagots; but all the rest of us were scarce able to get on with
anything. Mother made believe to spin, but her supply of flax had
not diminished by one-half when she shoved aside the spindle and
went out. Father chipped away at first at the handle of his axe,
but the work must have been a little against the grain, for he
left it half done. After mother went away, father went out also,
but whether he went to town or not I don't know. At any rate he
forbade us to go out too, and promised us a whipping if we so much
as touched the lamp with the tips of our fingers. Why, we should
as soon have thought of fingering the priest's gold-embroidered
chasuble. We were only afraid that the cord which held up all this
splendor might break and we should get the blame of it.

But time hung heavily in the sitting-room, and as we couldn't hit
upon anything else, we resolved to go in a body to the sleighing
hill. The town had a right of way to the river for fetching water
therefrom, and this road ended at the foot of a good hill down
which the sleigh could run, and then up the other side along the
ice rift.

"Here come the Lamphill children," cried the children of the town,
as soon as they saw us.