When Father brought Home the Lamp

by Juhani Aho

When father bought the lamp, or a little before that, he said to mother:

"Listen, shouldn't we buy a lamp?"

"A lamp? What sort of a lamp?"

"What! Don't you know that the shopkeeper in the town has brought lamps from St. Petersburg that actually burn better than ten wood torches? They've already got a lamp like it at the banker's house."

"Oh, yes! Isn't it one of those things which shines in the middle of the room so that we can see to read in every corner, just as if it was daylight?"

"That's just it. There's oil that burns in it, and you only have to light it in the evening, and it burns without going out till the next morning."

"But how can the wet oil burn? Isn't it dangerous?"

"How can the place catch fire when the oil is inside glass, and the fire as well?"

"In a glass? How can fire burn in a glass – won't it burst?"

"Won't what burst?"

"The glass."

"Burst! No, it never bursts. It might, if the fire was too high, but you don't have to do that. And when you blow it, it goes out!"

"It goes out! Of course! But I don't understand it all yet. It doesn't matter how much you explain – some sort of modern thing for rich people, I suppose."

"You'll understand it, when I buy one."

"How much does it cost?"

"Seven and a half marks, and the oil is extra at one mark the can."

"Seven and a half marks and the oil as well! For that you can buy wooden torches for more than a week. And when our Pekka cuts the wood, not a penny is lost."

"And you'll lose nothing on the lamp, either! Wood costs money too, and you can't find it everywhere on our land now as you used to. You have to travel quite far to find that wood, and drag it from the most out-of-the-way places – and it's soon used up, too."

Mother knew very well that wood is not so quickly used up as her husband said. Nobody had said anything about this problem up to now, and she knew it was only an excuse to go away and buy this lamp. But she did not say anything because she did not want to make father angry, because then they would never buy the lamp and oil and nobody would get the chance to see it. Or someone else might manage to get a lamp first for his farm, and then the whole village would begin talking about the farm that had been FIRST, after the banker's house, to use a lamp. So mother thought it over, and then she said to father:

"Buy it, if you like. It's all the same to me if it's wood that burns or oil, if only I can see to do the housework. When are you thinking of buying it?"

"I thought of setting off tomorrow – I have some other business at the shops as well."

It was now the middle of the week, and mother knew very well that the other business could wait till Saturday, but she did not say anything now either, but, she thought 'the sooner the better.'

And that same evening father brought in from the store room the big travelling case and told mother to fill it with cotton-wool in the middle. We children asked why they put nothing in the box except cotton-wool, but she told us to keep quiet. Father was in a better mood, and explained that he was going to bring a lamp from the shop, and that it was made of glass and might break if he fell.

That evening we children lay awake a long time and thought of the new lamp; but old Pekka, the man who used to cut all the wood, began to snore as soon as the evening wood torch was put out. And he didn't once ask what sort of thing the lamp was, although we talked about it ever so much.

The journey took father all day, and a very long time it seemed to us all. We didn't even enjoy our food that day. But Pekka ate as much as all of us put together, and spent the day cutting wood till he had filled the outhouse. Mother, too, kept on going to the window and looking out, over the ice, after father. She said to Pekka, now and then, that perhaps we shouldn't want all that wood anymore, but Pekka didn't listen, because he didn't ask the reason why.

It was not till supper time that we heard the horses. With the bread still in our mouths, we children rushed out, but father drove us in again and told Pekka to come and help with the case. Pekka, who had been asleep by the stove, knocked the case against the front door as he was helping father to carry it into the room. Father would certainly have hit him if he had been younger, but he was an old man now, and father had never in his life hit a man older than himself.

But, fortunately, there was no damage.

"Get up on the stove, you idiot!" shouted father at Pekka.

But father had already taken the lamp out of the case, and now it hung from one hand.

"Look! There it is! How do you think it looks? You put the oil into this glass... hold that wooden torch a little further away, will you!"

"Shall we light it?" said mother.

"Are you mad? How can we light it when there's no oil in it?"

"Well, can't you put some in?"

"Put in oil? That's just the way when people don't understand these things; but the shopkeeper warned me again and again never to put the oil in by firelight, as it might catch fire and burn the whole house down."

"Then when will you put the oil into it!"

"In the daytime – daytime, do you hear? Can't you wait till day? It isn't a great miracle. It's just a lamp."

"Have you SEEN it burn, then?"

"Of course I have. What a question! I've seen it burn many times, both at the banker's house and when we tried this one at the shop."

"And it burnt, did it?"

"Burnt? Of course it did, and when we closed the curtains of the shop, you could see a needle on the floor. Look here, now! When the fire is burning in this glass here, you could find a needle on the floor."

Now we all very much wanted to see if we could find a needle on the floor, but father began to eat his supper.

"This evening we must be happy, one more time, with wooden sticks," said father, as he ate; "but tomorrow the lamp will burn in this house."

"Look, father! Pekka has been cutting wooden sticks all day, and filled the outhouse with them."

"That's all right. We've fuel now to last all the winter, because we won't want them for anything else."

"But how about the bath house and the stable?" said mother.

"In the bath house we'll burn the lamp," said father.

That night I slept even less than the night before and when I woke in the morning I nearly cried when I remembered that the lamp was not going to be lit till the evening. I had dreamed that father had put oil into the lamp at night and that it had burnt the whole day.

Immediately when it began to get light, father found a big bottle and put something from it into a smaller bottle. We wanted to ask what was in this bottle, but we were not brave enough because father looked so serious about it that it frightened us.

But when he took the lamp and began to play with it, mother couldn't stop herself and asked him what he was doing.

"I'm putting oil into the lamp."

"You're taking it to pieces! How will you get everything in its right place again?"

Father said nothing, but he told us to keep further away. Then he filled the glass nearly full from the smaller bottle.

"Well, won't you light it now?" asked mother again.

"What! In the daytime?"

"Yes – surely we might try it, to see how it'll burn."

"It'll burn right enough. Just wait till the evening and don't bother me."

After dinner, Pekka brought in some frozen wood to cut up into wooden sticks, and threw it from his shoulders on to the floor so that it shook the whole room and made the oil move in the lamp.

"Careful!" shouted father. "Why are you making that noise?"

"I brought in the wooden sticks."

"You may save yourself the trouble then," said father.

"Don't you want to cut any more wooden sticks, then?"

"Well, suppose I DID say that we were not going to cut any more wooden sticks?"

"Oh! It's all the same to me if you can manage without them."

"Don't you see the lamp, Pekka?" When father asked this question he looked up at the lamp, and then he looked sadly down at Pekka.

"It's a lamp," says father, "and when it burns you won't want any more light from wooden sticks."

"Oh!" said Pekka, and, without another word, he went off behind the stable, and all day long, just as on other days, he cut branches; but the rest of us couldn't think about anything else.

Mother pretended to work but actually did very little. Father cut away with his axe, but he left his work half done. After mother went away, father went out too, but whether he went to town or not, I don't know. Anyway, he told us not to go out and promised us a fight if we even touched the lamp.

But time passed very slowly at home, and as we couldn't think of anything else, we decided to go out onto the hill together.

"Here come the Lamp kids," cried the children from the town, as soon as they saw us.

"Ah, ah! We know! You've gone and bought one of those lamps for your place. We know all about it!"

"But how do you know about it already?"

"Your mother mentioned it to my mother when she went to our place. She said that your father had bought one of those lamps that burn so brightly that you can find a needle on the floor."

"Then you really have got a lamp like that, eh?" asked all the children from the town.

"Yes, we have but it's nothing to look at in the daytime, but in the evening we'll all go there together."

And while we went on walking, we talked about the lamp with the children.

In this way the time passed more quickly than we thought, and it was soon getting dark and we went home.

Pekka was cutting wood and didn't even turn his head, although we all called to him with one voice to come and see how the lamp was lit. We children ran in all together.

But at the door we stood completely still. The lamp was already burning so brightly that we couldn't look at it without blinking.

"Shut the door; it's very cold," cried father, from behind the table.

It was only when our eyes had got used to the light that we saw that the room was half full of neighbours.

"Come nearer, children, so you can see it," said father, in a much kinder voice than just before.

"Knock that snow off your feet, and come here. It looks wonderful from here," said mother.

We all sat down on the bench beside her. We had never thought that it would burn as it was burning now. And when we had looked at it a bit longer, it seemed to us like we had always known it would be exactly like it was.

But what we could not understand was how the fire was put into that glass. We asked mother, but she said we should see how it was done later.

Father asked me to take my ABC book and go to the door to see if I could read it there. I went and began to read.

"Yes, it's marvellous!" everyone said.

Then father said: "Now if anyone has a needle, you can throw it on the floor and see it."

It was only after the neighbours went home that Pekka came in.

He blinked a bit at first at the unusual lamplight, but then calmly took off his jacket and boots.

"What's that?" he asked at last, when he had hung his coat up.

"Come now, guess what it is," said father.

"I can't guess," said Pekka, and he came nearer to the lamp. He became really curious and passed his thumb along the lamp.

"There's no need to touch it," said father, "Look at it, but don't touch it."

"All right, all right! I don't want to play with it!" said Pekka, a little angry, and he went back to the bench by the door.

Mother thought that it was wrong to behave to poor Pekka like that, because she began to explain to him that it was a lamp, and that it burnt with oil, and that was why people didn't want wooden sticks anymore.

But Pekka understood so little that he immediately began to cut the wood which he had pulled into the room the day before. Then father said to him that he had already told him there was no need to.

"Oh! I quite forgot," said Pekka; "but it can stay there if it isn't wanted anymore," and with that Pekka pushed his knife in the wall.

"Let it stay there," said father.

But Pekka never said another word. A little while after that, he began to repair his boots. He stood on tiptoe to get some wood down, lit it and sat down on his little stool by the stove. We children saw this before father, who stood with his back to Pekka under the lamp. We said nothing, however, but laughed and whispered among ourselves, "If only father sees that, what will he say, I wonder?" And when father caught sight of him, he stood in front of Pekka, and asked him what sort of work he was doing that he needed a different light for himself?

"I am only repairing my shoes," said Pekka to father.

"Repairing your shoes, eh? Then if you can't see to do that by the same light that does for me, you may go with your wood torch into the bath house."

And Pekka went.

He put his boots under his arm, took his stool in one hand and his torch in the other and off he went. He walked softly through the door into the hall, and out of the hall into the garden. We children saw the light through the window and thought it looked very pretty.

But when Pekka went into the bath house, it was all dark again, and we saw only the lamp in the dark window.

After that, we never burnt a torch in the living room again. The lamp burnt and on Sunday evenings all the people from the town used to come to look at it. Everyone knew that our house was the first to have a lamp.

The poorer farm people, however, can't get themselves lamps, and even now they do their long evening's work by torch light.

But when we had had the lamp a short time, father painted the walls of the living room white, and they never got black again.

Father didn't care that Pekka never came in, but we children missed him and the torches. Now and then, during the long winter evenings, we went down to the bath house and there was Pekka sitting by the light of his torch.