was known all over the parish that our house was the first, after
the parsonage, where the lamp had been used. After we had set the
example, the magistrate bought a lamp like ours, but as he had
never learned to light it, he was glad to sell it to the
innkeeper, and the innkeeper has it still.

The poorer farmfolk, however, have not been able to get themselves
lamps, but even now they do their long evening's work by the glare
of a pare.

But when we had had the lamp a short time, father planed the walls
of the dwelling-room all smooth and white, and they never got
black again, especially after the old stove, which used to smoke,
had to make room for another, which discharged its smoke outside
and had a cowl.

Pekka made a new fireplace in the bath-house out of the stones of
the old stove, and the crickets flitted thither with the stones--
at least their chirping was never heard any more in the dwelling
room. Father didn't care a bit, but we children felt, now and
then, during the long winter evenings, a strange sort of yearning
after old times, so we very often found our way down to the bath-
house to listen to the crickets, and there was Pekka sitting out
the long evenings by the light of his pare.