's eyes flashed
and he longed to be able to draw the sword to defend his beloved
country's liberty.

But at last they had gone over all these things and were sleepy
themselves, so they made up their beds on some sheep-skin rugs on the
floor, and soon fell into a sound sleep.

* * * * *

The next day it was still storming, and so Father Mikko gave up all idea
of leaving that day. About three o'clock in the afternoon--it was dark
as night then--they had all finished dinner and settled down around the
fire as on the day before, and Father Mikko was easily persuaded to go
on with his stories.

Erik was at work on a pair of snow-shoes, just like those that
Lemminkainen wore in the story of the hunt after the Hisi-deer. They
were nearly finished--about six feet long and five inches wide in the
broadest part, with a place in the middle to fasten them on to the feet,
and the front ends were turned up. All that now remained to be done was
to polish them off, and Erik worked at this while Father Mikko told his
stories. The children had enough to do to watch 'Pappa' Mikko's face and
listen to the wonderful tales, and Mother Stina was busy with some
sewing--she couldn't spin because the noise of the wheel would have
drowned Father Mikko's voice.

'Now that we have brought Lemminkainen back from the Death-river,' the
old man said, 'we will see what Wainamoinen was doing all this while.'
So he began as follows:

[Illustration]

WAINAMOINEN'S BOAT-BUILDING

Wainamoinen started to build a boat from the Rainbow-maiden's distaff,
but he had soon used up all his timber, and the boat was far from
finished. So he asked Sampsa (the planter of the first trees that grew
on earth) to go and search out the needful timber in order to finish the
boat.

Sampsa started off with a golden axe upon his shoulder and a copper
hatchet in his belt. He wandered through the mountain forests, and at
length came upon a great aspen, and was just going to cut it down, when
the aspen asked him what he wanted. 'I wish to take your timber for a
vessel,' Sampsa replied, 'that the wise magician Wainamoinen is
building.' Then the aspen answered: 'All the boats that have been made
of my wood have been but failures; they float but a little way, and
then sink to the ocean's bottom, for my trunk is full of hollow places,
where the worms have eaten my wood.'

So Sampsa left the aspen and searched still further, until he