Top of the World Stories for Boys and Girls Part 8

Sikku raised himself slowly and listened. One of the Cossacks began talking in his sleep and tossed his arms about, so Sikku lay down again; but still he could not sleep.

After a while he sat up once more, and since everything was quiet, he stole out from among the sleeping Cossacks and went silently down to the boat at the sh.o.r.e. Here the trusted guard was also asleep, and slept so heavily that he knew nothing of Sikku's doings, although Sikku shoved the boat gently out into the water, sat down in the stern and let the wind drive the boat toward the mainland.

Still the Cossack watchman slept as the boat sped quietly on. He had ridden hard, many, many miles. Little wonder that he slept like a log!

When Sikku felt the boat grate against the land, he climbed softly out, took his old knife from his pocket, and cut the ropes that bound the prisoners. The Cossack still slept. The released prisoners could scarcely believe that they were free. They followed Sikku to the boat, and bound their enemy with the same ropes by which a moment ago they themselves had been bound.

Now at last the Cossack was awake, but too late. He had been made his captives' captive.

"Kill him at once! And then let us row to the island and kill the others while they sleep!" shouted one of the newly freed men.

"No," said Sikku, who recognized his master's voice. "Let us rather take their booty and hurry it and ourselves to safety."

"They have burnt my house and barns, and stolen everything I had," said the farmer savagely.

"They freed me and gave me food," said Sikku, who seemed suddenly like a grown man.

Most of the men agreed with Sikku. The Cossacks were not killed, some of the land's folk rode away on the enemy's horses, others drove herds of cattle off to safe hiding-places in the forest, and each person carried away as much as he could of the enemy's plunder. Sikku had chosen his share and was well pleased with it.

Several days after, the warrior bands returned from their raids and took to their s.h.i.+ps again.

Then the folk came out from the depths of the forest and from the mountain caves where they had sought refuge in the hour of danger, and many came from their burnt farms. They gathered at the church to consult together as to what was best to be done now. For one thing, they must decide the fate of the six captive Cossacks,--the five on the island having also been captured.

"Kill them! Kill them!" shouted several.

"No, give them to Sikku," said others. "He captured them."

So the six Cossacks were given to Sikku who exacted the promise from them that they would not fight against Finland any more. Then he let them go, free and unharmed.

The farmer of Anttilla and his wife had settled themselves in a tiny hut on their estate which the enemy, in their headlong haste, had not burned.

"Alas!" said the wife, the first evening they sat in their new poor home. "If we only had our beautiful cows now!"

"If we only had!" said the farmer.

At that moment they saw a little bareheaded, barefooted boy come from the hillside grove toward the hut, driving before him, with the help of a long-nosed, yellow dog, a herd of nine beautiful cows.

"Isn't that Sikku? And Kettu?" exclaimed the farmer.

"And are not those our cows?" cried the farm mistress.

Yes, it was Sikku; and Kettu; and those were the Anttilla Farm cows that the robbers had taken away with them. Three had been slain, but the nine that were left, Sikku had asked for as his share of the booty.

"Here I come, bringing you nine beautiful cows!" shouted Sikku. He would fain have swung his cap for joy, only he had no cap.

"Darling boy!" "Is it really you?" exclaimed the farmer and his wife at the same time. Then they embraced Sikku, and patted the cows again and again in their delight.

Kettu had already disappeared in the hut to see whether Miss p.u.s.s.y's broken dish still stood by the water-tub. Miss p.u.s.s.y hissed and spat at him and so there was again war in the land.

"Are you hungry, Sikku?" asked the mistress. Her conscience was very uneasy.

"No, I thank you," answered Sikku. "I was thinking of something else. It is not yet full moon."

At these words, the farmer fumbled with his big ears in embarra.s.sment and distress, remembering his rash promise. Here was Sikku with nine cows, and true enough, the moon was not yet full. Well, Sikku had proved himself a fine fellow;--a promise was a promise;--they needed the cows sadly. One might as well make the best of the situation.

"Listen now, Sikku," said he. "Let us be good friends. What could you do with so much land while you are so little? Serve me faithfully for seven years, and I will then keep my promise and give you all the land you can see from Sipuri Mountain."

"Done!" said Sikku.

So Sikku served faithfully for seven years at Anttilla Farm, grew tall and strong, got s.h.i.+rts and caps and shoes, married the farmer's daughter, the kind Greta, and received with her not only all the land to be seen from Sipuri Mountain, but a fine new farmhouse besides.

Kettu and Miss p.u.s.s.y lived many years and, when they died, were both buried at the foot of Sipuri Mountain.

And the three trolls? Oh, yes. Well, there is a big crows' nest at Allis Farm, in which live three crows. They can give you news of the trolls, if any one can; but people say, you know, that crows are not to be relied upon in the least.

--_Z. Topelius_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

SAMPO LAPPELIL

There was once a Lapp and a Lapp woman. The Lapps are a people who live north of the Swedes, the Norwegians, and the Finns, far, far up in the north. They have neither fields, nor real forests, nor regular houses, but only great barren bogs and high mountains, and small huts, which they crawl into through a hole. The country of the Lapps is strange.

Half the year it is light most of the time, for the sun never sets in the middle of summer, and the other half of the year it is dark most of the time, and the stars s.h.i.+ne all day in winter.

Ten months of the year it is winter, and then the little Lapp men and the little Lapp women drive over the snow in small boats, which are called pulks. There is no horse harnessed before the pulk, but a reindeer. Have you ever seen a reindeer? It is as large as a little horse, is gray in color, has high branching horns, a stooping neck, and a pretty little head with great clear eyes. When it runs at full speed, it goes flying over mountains and hills like a rus.h.i.+ng wild wind, and its hoofs snap as it dashes along.

There was, as I have said, a Lapp and a Lapp woman. They lived far up in Lapland, in Aimio, which lies near Tenojoki or the Tana River. (You can see it on the map of Finland, where Lapland can be found like a great nightcap on Finland's high head.) The place was barren and wild, but the Lapp and his wife felt sure that nowhere on the whole earth could you see such white snow, such clear stars, and such beautiful Northern Lights as at Aimio. There they had built themselves a hut such as Lapps usually live in. No large trees grew in that region,--only slender birches, that were more like bushes than trees--so where could they get wood for a house? Instead, they took long, thin sticks, stuck them into the snow, in a circle, tied the upper ends together, hung reindeer skins over the sticks, so that altogether it looked like a gray sugar-loaf, and then the hut was finished. In the top of the sugar-loaf they left a hole, through which the smoke could escape if they lighted a fire, and there was another hole in the southern side through which they could crawl in and out. The Lapps thought it was pretty and warm and were very happy in it, though they had no other bed and no other floor than the white snow.

The man and the woman had a little boy whose name was Sampo, and that means "luck" in Lapland. But Sampo had two names. Once some strange gentlemen in great fur coats had come and stayed in the hut. They had with them little hard, white pieces of snow, such as the Lapp woman had never seen before, which they called "sugar." They gave Sampo a few pieces of the sweet snow, and they patted him on the cheek and said: "Lappelil! Lappelil!" which means "little Lapp." They could not say anything else, for they could not talk Lapp. And then they traveled away farther north, to the Arctic Ocean and the northernmost point of Europe which is called the North Cape. The Lapp woman liked the strange gentlemen and their sweet snow, and she began from that time to call her boy "Lappelil."

"I think Sampo a much better name," said the man, rather vexed. "Sampo means 'riches,' and I tell you, Mother, don't spoil the name! For, some time, Sampo will become the king of the Lapps, and reign over thousands of reindeer and fifty Lapp huts."

"Yes, but Lappelil sounds so pretty," said the woman. And she called the boy "Lappelil," and the man called him "Sampo." He was, however, not christened yet, for at that time there was no priest within a hundred miles. "Next year we will go to the priest and let him christen the boy," the man used to say. But next year something came in the way, and the journey did not take place, and the boy did not get christened.

Sampo Lappelil was now a fat little fellow seven or eight years old, with black hair and brown eyes; he had a snub nose and a broad mouth just like his papa's; in Lapland a face must have such features if it is to be thought really fine. Sampo was not a stupid boy for his age; he had his own little snow-shoes and on them he danced over the high hills near the Tana; and his own little reindeer which he harnessed before his own pulk. You should have seen how the snow blew about him, as he rushed off over the ice and the high snow-drifts, so that nothing of the boy was to be seen but a tuft of his black hair!

"I shall never feel quite safe until the boy is christened," the Lapp woman often said. "The wolves may get him some fine day here on the mountains, or he may meet Hiisi's reindeer with the golden horns--and then may G.o.d protect the poor creature who is not christened!"

Sampo, hearing this, began to wonder what kind of a reindeer it could be that had golden horns. "That must be a beautiful reindeer," said he. "I should like to drive it once; then I would travel to Rastekais!"

Rastekais is a very wild, high mountain that may be seen from twenty-five or thirty miles away.

"Don't you dare to talk so, naughty boy!" said the mother, and scolded him. "It is just on Rastekais that the trolls are, and there lives Hiisi."

"Hiisi--who is that?" asked Sampo.