the building, they seemed to leave some of their somberness there. They gathered in groups and together departed either for a swim in the lake or with hammocks and lunches for a picnic in the silent woods.

"THINGS TASTED SO GOOD OUT OF DOORS"

Things tasted so good out of doors that Maja and Juhani smiled much at each other, although Juhani would always put on a particularly serious look afterwards. Then the two swung on one of the hammocks and also on a huge swing near the Church. "Come on for a ramble with us in the woods," two passing children of their own age called to them. "Come," said Maja, taking hold of Juhani's hand, and away they went over the greenish gray mosses through the rosy and pale yellow underbrush. There were bright red cranberries here and there with which they filled their pockets as they discussed, not church affairs, but wood nymphs, the kind ugly tomtar or brownies, and the little gray man in the woods who has a fiery tail.

Suddenly Maja stopped, looking so scared that all followed her example. "What is it?" asked her brother.

"A brownie!" Maja could hardly make herself heard.

The boys laughed at her as they rushed forward and made a big brown squirrel scamper away into the branches of a tree.

"Nevertheless I'd like to believe that there were brownies around," Juhani confessed when the girls had come up. "Do you know that they are so kind that on Christmas they bring a gift to every animal that lives near?"

The others nodded. "I'd rather see one than a wood nymph," one of them declared. "I'd be afraid of her. My! but she must be ugly from behind if she's really hollow there as they say. She's apt to do you harm too, if you see her from the back."

By this time they had reached a little one-room hut evidently deserted, for the door swung on only one hinge. Before they peeked in, Juhani, with a curious look on his face, cautioned each to say "Good Day to all here" on entering even if they saw no one, for a Tomty might be hidden in some corner.

It was a very old type of house. The upper half of the walls were stained black. There was a big fire place but no chimney, the smoke having evidently been allowed to escape through a hole in the roof.

A long thin piece of resinous wood was still fastened to one wall. This was called a pare, and when lit served instead of lamp or candle.

There was a small clearing around the house, and half buried in leaves near the door was an old-time harrow that had once been formed from a bundle of stout fir top branches.

Later they paused to ask for a drink of water at a small two-room cottage of unhewn, unpainted wood surrounded by a little pasture but with no garden or other sign of cultivation around, nothing but the vast impressive forest. A savage-looking dog that looked as if it might have been crossed with a fox, snarled at them but was called away by a very old woman who explained that she was there alone, her son having lately gone to a timber camp. "He'll come back with enough money," she added with a trembling voice, "to see us through the winter, which is going to be a hard one."

"Why do you say that, Granny?" asked Juhani.

"Couldn't you see it for yourself," the old woman returned rather sharply, "by the great number of berries?"

"Are you not lonely here?" Maja inquired with sympathy.

"Aye, lonely," repeated the woman, "but contented too, for have I not the forest with me day and night and is it not a part of my very soul?"

A long drawn whistle here made the children realize that the church parties were breaking up and that they must make haste to return, so thanking the old woman they raced back apparently as fresh as if they had not already had a long tramp. Where the forest was thickest it was quite dark. "If it gets any darker," said Maja, "we'll have to stop and pray to the Twilight Maiden to spin for us a thread of gold to lead us safely home."

"There are also others to help us," said Juhani, and half playfully he called on all the woodland fairy folk whose names are found in the great Finland epic, "The Kalevala": on Mielikki, hostess of the forest; Tuometar, nymph of the bird cherry; Katejatar, nymph of the juniper; Pillajatar, nymph of the mountain ash; Matka-Teppo, god of the road; Hongatar, ruler of the pines; Sinetar, that beauteous elf who paints the flowers the blue of the sky, and on Sotka's daughter who protects wild game from harm.

CHAPTER III

The next day Maja had to stay in the house to help while her mother and sister baked, for they were to have a talko, that is, neighbors had been invited over to help with the last of the harvesting. "Have lots of good things to eat," Juhani called as he followed his father out to help in one of the fields. Here a number of peasants were driving long poles into the ground at regular intervals; to these they fastened eight outstretched arms, the ends of which were curved upwards. On these arms hay that had been cut with sickles was carefully arranged that it might dry.

While this was being done, the grain that had been dried some time before was being baked in an outside oven or kiln not far from the hay barn, a big long building with a corrugated roof.

This baking makes the Finnish grain in demand for seed in other countries, for it drives away the damp and kills all insects that might injure the germ.

By evening all the work was finished, and the merry group of peasant men and women who had given their help trooped, singing, to the house. A big supper awaited them and as they sat down, the men on one side of the table, the women on the other, all showed the splendid appetites which the work in the fields had given them.

As soon as the supper was over, the floor was cleared, and all joined in dancing the national dance, called the jenka, during which a warmth of feeling was displayed that belied their reputation for being stolid, and that no stranger, who might have seen the men and women on their way to church the day before, would have believed possible.

After this the weather grew less pleasant; the sky was often dull and overcast; cold raw winds began to blow and there was much fog and sleet. During this time there was a certain flurry in the farm house, for Juhani, young as he was, had gained his father's permission to accompany an uncle to a lumber camp some distance to the north.

At the first fall of snow they left. It was a long drive they had, one that grew colder after the middle of the day. The air, which was very still, had a frostiness to it that nipped Juhani's nose and face. But neither he nor his uncle grumbled. The faces of both had a peculiarly similar look of patient endurance. It was not until toward evening that they came to a rolling swampy country where a big body of woodmen were already at work at the rude shelters that were to form the camp. For one night a batch of new men had to lie around the camp fire, turning one side, then the other to the heat, for there were not enough huts yet built.

Juhani was put to work almost at once in picking up chips and doing all sorts of odds and ends,