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ADVENTURE IV
THE CHIEF MOURNER

“Mercy me!” thought Mikko to himself as he watched Varis, the Crow, fly away, “this is certainly my unlucky day! There I had my dinner right in my hand and then lost it!”

Sighing and shaking his head he sauntered slowly back to the forest.

Now it happened that Osmo, the Bear, had just lost his wife and was out looking for some one to bewail her death. The first person he met was Pekka, the Wolf.

“Pekka,” he said, “my wife’s dead and I’m out looking for a good strong mourner. Can you mourn?”

“Me? Indeed I can! Just listen!”

Pekka, the Wolf, pointed his nose to the sky and let out a long shivery howl.

“There!” he said. “I don’t believe you’ll find any one that can do any better than that!”

But Osmo, the Bear, shook his head.

“No, Pekka, you won’t do. I don’t like your mourning at all!”

The Bear ambled on and presently he met the Hare.

“Good day, Jussi,” he said. “Are you any good at mourning? Show me what you can do.”

The Hare gave some frightened squeaks as his idea of mourning the dead.

“No, no,” Osmo said, “I don’t like your mourning either.”

So he walked on farther until by chance he met the Fox.

“Mikko,” he said, “my wife’s dead and I’m out looking for a good strong mourner. Can you mourn?”

“Can I? Indeed I can!” the Fox declared. “I’m a marvel at mourning! I can wail high and low and soft and loud and just any way you want! Listen!” And Mikko, beginning with a little whimpering sound, slowly rose to a high heartrending cry. This is what he wailed:

 
“Med! Med! Med!
The Bear’s Wife is dead!
Lax! Lax! Lax!
No more she’ll spin the flax!
Eyes! Eyes! Eyes!
No more she’ll bake the pies!
Air! Air! Air!
No more she’ll drive the mare!
Shakes! Shakes! Shakes!
There’ll be no more little cakes!
Darth! Darth! Darth!
Throw the pots on the hearth
For the Bear’s Wife is dead!
Med! Med! Med!”
 

Osmo, the Bear, was deeply moved.

“Beautiful! Beautiful!” he grunted hoarsely. “How well you knew her! Come along home with me, Mikko, and start right in! Oh, how beautifully you wail!”

So Mikko went home with the Bear. The old Bear Wife was laid out on a bench in the kitchen.

“Now then,” the Bear said, “you begin the wailing while I cook the porridge.”

“No, no, Osmo,” the Fox said, “I couldn’t possibly wail in here! The place is full of smoke and my voice would get husky in two minutes! Can’t you lay her out in the storehouse?”

The Bear demurred but the Fox insisted and at last had his way. So together they dragged the body of the old Bear Wife out to the storehouse. The Fox stood beside the body ready to begin his wailing and the Bear went back to the kitchen.

The moment the Bear was out of sight Mikko, the rascal, instead of bewailing the old Bear Wife began gobbling her up! He just gobbled and gobbled and gobbled as fast as he could.

“What’s the matter?” the Bear called out after a few minutes. “Why don’t you begin?”

The Fox made no reply but kept on gobbling as hard as he could.

“Mikko! Mikko!” the Bear called out again. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you howling?”

By this time the Fox had made a good dinner, so he called back:

“Don’t bother me! I’m busy eating! Yum! Yum! Yum! Bear meat is awful good! Just give me a few more minutes and I’ll be finished!”

At that the Bear rushed out of the kitchen in a terrible rage but the Fox was already running off and the Bear was unable to catch him. He did hit the end of his tail with the long spoon with which he had been measuring the meal, but that was all.

Mikko, the rascal, got safely away. However, to this day his tail shows the white mark of the meal.

ADVENTURE V
MIRRI, THE CAT

One day while the Fox was out walking in the forest he met a stranger.

“Good day,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I am Mirri,” the stranger said, “a poor unfortunate Cat out of employment. I had service in a decent family but I’ve had to leave them.”

“Did they treat you badly?” the Fox asked.

“No, it wasn’t that. They were considerate enough but they kept getting poorer and poorer until finally they hadn’t food enough to feed us animals. Then I overheard the master say that soon they’d be forced to eat us and that they’d begin with me. At that I decided it was time for me to run away and here I am.”

“My poor Cat,” Mikko said, “you’ve had a cruel experience! Why don’t you take service with me?”

“Will I be safe with you?” the Cat asked. “Will you protect me?”

“Will I?” the Fox repeated boastfully. “My dear Mirri, once it becomes known that you are Mikko’s servant all the animals will show you a wholesome respect.”

“Well then, I’ll enter your service,” the Cat said.

So the bargain was struck and the Fox at once began to train his new servant.

“Now, Mirri, tell me: what would you do if you suddenly met a Bear?”

“There’s just one thing I could do, master: I’d run up a tree.”

The Fox laughed.

“You must have more ways than one to meet such a situation! Take me now: there are any of a hundred things that I could do if I met a Bear!”

Just then Osmo, the Bear, ambled softly up behind the Fox. The Cat saw him and instantly flew up a tree. Before the Fox could move Osmo clutched him firmly on the shoulder with his teeth.

“Oh, master, master!” the Cat called down from the tree. “What’s this? I with my one way have escaped and you with your hundred are caught!”

But the Fox paid no heed to the Cat. He twisted his head around and looked reproachfully at the Bear.

“Why, Osmo, my dear old friend!” he said, “what in the world do you mean taking hold of me so roughly! Ouch! You’re nipping my shoulder, really you are! I don’t understand why you’re acting this way! Here I’ve always been such a good friend to you, so faithful, so true, so – ”

“What!” rumbled the Bear. “Faithful! True! Oh, you – ”

Osmo’s feelings overcame him to such an extent that he opened his jaws to roar out freely his denial of the Fox’s hypocrisy.

That gave the Fox just the chance he wanted. He jerked quickly away and fled and the Bear was left standing with his mouth wide open.

Later when the Bear had ambled off the Fox returned and called the Cat down from the tree.

“You see, Mirri,” he remarked casually, “it wasn’t anything at all for me to get the best of the Bear!”

He could see that he had vastly impressed the Cat, so he let the subject drop.

“Come along, Mirri,” he said, “it’s time for us to go home.”

ADVENTURE VI
THE FOX’S SERVANT

A day or so later the Fox met Pekka, the Wolf. The Fox hadn’t seen much of Pekka recently for Pekka had been having a hard time and had been on the verge of starvation. Now he was sleek again and well fed for he had recently killed an Ox.

“Good day, Pekka,” the Fox said in a friendly way.

“Good day, Mikko. How are you?”

“Very fine indeed!” the Fox said. “You see I have a new servant. Oh, he’s a wonderful servant! He’s not big to look at, you know, but he’s so strong and quick that he’d jump on you in a minute and eat you up before you knew what was happening!”

“Really, Mikko?”

“Yes, really! You just ought to see him!”

“I’d like to see him,” the Wolf said.

“Well, you might slip down now and take a peep in the kitchen. He’s at home. But, my dear Pekka, I warn you not to let him see you! If he catches sight of you, I won’t be responsible for the consequences!”

The Wolf was deeply impressed with all this. He crept carefully down to the Fox’s kitchen and sniffed cautiously at the crack under the door. The Cat inside, seeing the tip of the Wolf’s nose and thinking it was a Mouse, pounced on it with all his claws. This gave the Wolf a mighty fright and he bolted madly off into the forest.

He was still panting when he met the Bear.

“Osmo,” he said, “have you heard about that awful creature that Mikko has for a servant?”

The Bear had heard nothing, so the Wolf related to him his own terrifying experience.

The Bear’s curiosity was aroused.

“I must have a glimpse of this wonderful servant,” he said, ambling off in the direction of the Fox’s kitchen.

“I’ll wait for you here,” the Wolf called after him, “and I warn you, Osmo, be careful!”

The Bear when he got to the Fox’s kitchen quietly stuck his nose under the crack of the door and squinted inside. He hardly had time for one squint when a terrible creature with a straight tail that looked like a spear came flying through the air, landed on his nose, and drove it full of pins and needles.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” the Bear whimpered as he hurried back to the Wolf.

“Did you see him?” the Wolf asked.

“I got just one glimpse of him,” the Bear said. “He had a long spear sticking up over his shoulder and he came swooping down through the air just as if he had wings!”

“My! I wish we could really see him!” the Wolf said. “Suppose we ask Mikko to arrange some way we can have a good look at him.”

So they went to the Fox and Mikko, the rascal, said:

“Well, now, if you make a feast and invite my servant I think he will come.”

“All right,” the Wolf said, “that’s what we’ll do. I’ve still got some of that ox. It will make a fine feast.”

So they roasted the remains of the ox and set it out.

“Now I’ll go get my servant,” the Fox said. “When you hear us coming, you two hide some place where you can see us but we can’t see you. If my servant once sees you I won’t be responsible for the consequences!”

So the Wolf hid in some bushes nearby and the Bear drew himself up into the branches of a tree.

Well, the Fox and the Cat arrived and sat them down to the feast. Now it happened that the Wolf was not able to see, so he tried to twist himself around into a better position. The Cat caught a glimpse of his tail moving in the bushes and instantly pounced on it. With one terrified yelp, the Wolf jumped out of the bushes and fled into the forest as fast as he could.

In fright the Cat scampered up the tree and the Bear, of course, supposed that the awful creature now was after him. In his frantic efforts to escape he tumbled down out of the tree and broke two ribs. But for all that he made off, too terrified to look back.

So the Fox and the Cat were left to finish the ox in peace.

ADVENTURE VII
THE WOLF SINGS

Having sacrificed his ox in order to feast the Fox’s servant, the Wolf had nothing left for himself and was soon very hungry. He could find nothing to eat in the forest, so he went prowling around a farm in hopes of getting a pig or a chicken. The only living creature he came upon was a thin old Dog asleep in the sun.

“This is better than nothing,” he thought to himself and, taking hold of the Dog, he began dragging it off.

“Cousin! Cousin!” cried the Dog. “Is this any way to treat a relation? Let me go!”

“I’m sorry,” the Wolf said, “but I can’t let you go. I’m too hungry.”

“Let me go,” the Dog begged, “and I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll give you a bottle of vodka.”

“Promises come easy,” the Wolf said. “Where will you get the vodka?”

“Under the bench in the kitchen. That’s where the master keeps his bottle. I’ve seen him hide it there. Come to-night after the family’s asleep and I’ll let you in and give you the vodka.”

Now Pekka, the Wolf, was very fond of vodka, so he said to the Dog:

“Very well, I’ll let you go. But see that you keep your promise!”

Late that night when the family were asleep, the Wolf came scratching at the farmhouse door and the Dog let him in.

“Well, old fellow, you know why I’ve come,” the Wolf said.

At once the Dog crawled under the bench and got the master’s bottle of vodka.

“Here, Pekka, here it is!” he said, offering the Wolf the bottle.

“You drink first,” Pekka insisted. “You’re the host.”

The Dog raised the bottle and took a little sip. Then the Wolf took a deep swallow.

“Ah!” he said, smacking his lips, “that’s something like!”

His stomach was empty and the vodka went through his veins like fire. He felt happy and laughed and went capering around the room.

“I feel like singing!” he cried.

“My dear Pekka,” the Dog said, “I beg you don’t sing! You will wake the folks! Sit down quietly and we’ll talk.”

So they sat awhile and talked and then the Wolf took another deep swallow of the vodka. Again he wanted to sing and the Dog had trouble in restraining him.

“Do you want to wake the family, Pekka? Be quiet now or you can’t have any more vodka!”

The Wolf took another deep drink and after that there was no holding him back. He went staggering around the room howling at the top of his voice.

The Farmer and all his family came hurrying into the kitchen with clubs and pokers and whatever they could pick up.

“It’s a Wolf!” the Farmer cried. “The impudent scoundrel, coming right into the house! Give him a good beating!”

If the door hadn’t been open they would have clubbed poor Pekka to death. As it was he barely escaped with his life.

ADVENTURE VIII
THE CLEVER GOAT

The truth is Pekka, the Wolf, was a pretty stupid fellow always getting into some scrape or other. With sore ribs and a back aching from the beating which the farm folk had given him he slunk quietly along the forest ways hoping to come upon some easy prey. Suddenly he saw ahead of him a Goat and a Ram.

“What are they doing hereabouts?” he thought to himself. “This is no place for them and if anything happens to them it will be their own fault.”

Vuhi, the Goat, and Dinas, the Ram, both knew that the forest was no place for them. But where else could they go? They had recently been turned loose to fend for themselves by their poor old master who was no longer able to feed them.

“This forest rather frightens me,” the Ram had said to the Goat. “Do you suppose we’ll be able to keep off the Wolves?”

Vuhi, the Goat, flirted his whiskers and said:

“I’ve got a plan.”

Thereupon he took a sack and half filled it with dry chips. Then when he shook the sack the chips made a hollow rattle. He threw the sack over his shoulder and said to the Ram:

“Don’t you be frightened, Dinas. We’ll be able to hold our own with the forest creatures.”

It was just at this moment that Pekka, the Wolf, appeared.

“Ha! Ha!” said Pekka suspiciously. “What’s that you’ve got in that sack? No nonsense now! Answer me at once or I’ll have to kill you both!”

Vuhi, the Goat, gave the sack a little rattle.

“In this sack?” he said. “Oh, only the skulls and bones of the Wolves we have eaten. We haven’t had any Wolf meat now for some time, have we, Dinas? It’s good you’ve come along for we’re hungry… Attention, Dinas! Kill the Wolf!”

The Ram lowered his horns ready for attack and Pekka, the Wolf, too surprised to resist and too stiff to run away, cried out wildly:

“Brothers! Brothers! Don’t kill me! I’m your friend! Spare me and I’ll do something for you!”

“Attention, Dinas!” the Goat commanded. “Don’t kill the Wolf just yet!”

Then he asked Pekka:

“What will you do for us if we spare you?”

“I’ll send you twelve Wolves,” Pekka promised. “That will give you more meat than you’d have if you killed just me!”

“Twelve,” the Goat replied. “You are right: twelve Wolves will give us more meat than one. Very well, we’ll let you go on condition that you send us twelve. But see you keep your word!”

So the Wolf went off as fast as his stiff legs could carry him and assembled twelve of his brothers.

“I’ve called you together,” he said, “to warn you of two terrible creatures, a Goat and a Ram, who are here in the forest eating up Wolves! Already they have a sack full of our unfortunate relations’ skulls and bones! I saw the sack myself! Don’t you think we ought all of us to flee?”

“What!” said the other Wolves, “thirteen Wolves turn tail on one Goat and one Ram? Never! We’ll go together and give them battle!”

“Don’t count me in!” Pekka said. “I don’t want to see those two again!”

So the twelve Wolves marched off without Pekka.

The Goat as he saw them coming ran up a tree. The Ram followed him but couldn’t get very high.

The twelve Wolves came under the tree and standing in close formation called out:

“Now then, you two, come on! We’re ready for you!”

“Attention, Dinas!” the Goat commanded. “They’re all here, so lose no more time! Jump down among them and kill them!”

The Goat himself began climbing down the tree, at the same time making an awful noise with his sack. He gave the Ram a push and the Ram slipped and fell right on the backs of the Wolves.

“That’s right, Dinas! Kill them all!” the Goat shouted, rattling his sack more furiously than ever. “Don’t let one of them escape!”

In the confusion that followed the Wolves stampeded, running helter-skelter in all directions. Every Wolf there felt that his own escape was a piece of rare good fortune.

“Those terrible two!” he thought.

Thereafter Vuhi, the Goat, and Dinas, the Ram, lived on in the forest untroubled by the Wolves.

ADVENTURE IX
THE HARVEST

Well, the time came when the field of barley which the Fox and the Wolf had planted together was ready to harvest. So the two friends cut the grain and carried the sheaves to the threshing barn where they spread them out to dry. When it was time to thresh the grain, they asked Osmo, the Bear, to come and help them.

“Certainly,” Osmo said.

At the time agreed the three animals met at the threshing barn.

“Now the first thing to decide,” Pekka said, “is how to divide the work.”

The Fox climbed nimbly up to the rafters.

“I’ll stay up here,” he called down, “and support the beams and the rafters. In that way there won’t be any danger of their falling and injuring either of you. You two work down there without any concern. Trust me! I’ll take care of you!”

So Osmo, the Bear, used the flail, and Pekka, the Wolf, winnowed the chaff from the grain. Mikko, the rascal, occasionally dropped down upon them a hunk of wood.

“Take care!” they’d call out. “Do you want to kill us?”

“Indeed, brothers, you have no idea how hard it is for me to hold up all these rafters!” Mikko would say. “You’re very lucky it’s only a little piece that drops on you now and then! If it weren’t for me you’d certainly be killed, both of you!”

Well, the Bear and the Wolf worked steadily. When they were finished Mikko, the rascal, leaped down from the rafters and stretched himself as though he had been working the hardest of them all.

“I’m glad that job of mine is finished!” he said. “I couldn’t have held things up much longer!”

“Well now,” Pekka asked, “how shall we divide this our harvest?”

“I’ll tell you how,” Mikko said. “Here are three of us and, see, here on the floor is our harvest already divided into three heaps. The biggest heap will naturally go to the biggest of us. That’s Osmo, the Bear. The middle sized heap will go to you, Pekka. I’m the smallest, so the smallest heap comes to me.”

The Bear and the Wolf, stupid old things, agreed to this. So Osmo took the great heap of straw, Pekka the pile of chaff, and Mikko, the rascal, got for his share the little mound of clean grain.

Together they all went to the mill to grind their meal.

As the millstone turned on Mikko’s grain, it made a rough rasping sound.

“Strange,” Osmo said to Pekka, “Mikko’s grain sounds different from ours.”

“Mix some sand with yours,” Mikko said, “then yours will make the same sound.”

So the Bear and the Wolf poured some sand in their straw and their chaff and sure enough, when they turned their millstones again, they, too, got a rough rasping sound.

This satisfied them and they went home feeling they had just as good a winter’s supply of food as Mikko.

ADVENTURE X
THE PORRIDGE

Well, it was only natural that they should all want to see at once what kind of porridge their meal would make.

Osmo’s came out black and disgusting. Greatly disturbed he ambled over to Mikko’s house for advice. The Fox was stirring his own porridge which was white and smooth.

“What’s the matter with my porridge?” the Bear asked. “Yours is white and smooth but mine is black and horrid.”

“Did you wash your meal before you put it into the pot?” the Fox asked.

“Wash it? No! How do you wash meal?”

“You take it to the river and drop it in the water. Then when it’s clean you take it out.”

The Bear at once went home and got his ground up straw and took it to the river. He dropped it in the water and of course it spread out far and wide and the current carried it off.

So that was the end of Osmo’s share of the harvest.

Pekka, the Wolf, had as little luck with his porridge. Soon he, too, came to Mikko for advice.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he said. “I don’t seem to be able to make good porridge. Look at yours all white and smooth! I must watch you how you make it. Won’t you let me hang my pot on your crane? Then I’ll do just as you do.”

“Certainly,” the Fox said. “Hang your pot on this chain and the two pots can then cook side by side.”

“Yours is so white to begin with,” Pekka said, “and mine looks no better than dirt.”

“Before you came I climbed up the chain and hung over the pot,” the Fox said. “The heat of the fire melted the fat in my tail and it dripped down into the pot. It’s that fat that makes my porridge look so white.”

Poor gullible Pekka immediately suspended himself on the chain above his porridge. But he didn’t stay there long. The flames scorched him and he fell down hurting his side. If you notice, to this day any Wolf that you meet has stiff sides that make it hard for him to turn and twist, and to this day all Wolves smell of burnt hair.

Well, Pekka, after he had got his breath, tasted his porridge again to see if it was any better. But it wasn’t. It was as bad as ever.

“I don’t see any difference in it,” he said. “Let me taste yours, Mikko.”

The Fox artfully scooped up a spoonful of the Wolf’s porridge and dropped it into his own pot.

“Help yourself,” he said. “Take some out of that spot there. That’s good.”

The place he pointed to was, of course, the place where he had dropped some of the Wolf’s own porridge.

So poor old stupid Pekka only sampled his own porridge again when he thought he was tasting Mikko’s.

“Strange,” he said, “your porridge doesn’t taste good to me either. I don’t believe anything tastes good to me to-day. The truth is I don’t believe I like porridge.”

He went home sad and discouraged while Mikko, the rascal, chuckled to himself and said:

“I wonder why Pekka doesn’t like porridge. It tastes awful good to me!”