Song of Sampo Lake by William Durbin

Author:William Durbin [Durbin, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56618-8
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2002-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Matti normally didn’t care for cats, but he felt sorry for Yrjo. Every time Yrjo stepped outside, Wilho dove and pecked his head. The only place Yrjo found safety was inside the sauna.

All that changed one day when Anna and Kari talked Mrs. Saari into giving them a pet rabbit. The floppy-eared creature was as big as a small dog, but the girls were afraid an owl or a fox might get him. So Mother let him stay inside at times. His favorite food was milk. One day when Mother poured some leftover milk into a bowl, the rabbit started drinking alongside Yrjo.

“Look,” Kari called, “Loppy and Yrjo are friends.” But the minute the rabbit saw the milk was gone, he jumped on top of Yrjo’s back and started kicking the daylights out of him. The cat took off running, and the minute he got out the door, Wilho flew down and pecked him on the head.

Yrjo finally discovered one place where no one would pester him, underneath Mother’s cookstove. Whether there was wood burning in the firebox or not, he curled up and took a nap.

One day Mother got tired of setting out buckets in the sauna whenever it rained, and she told Father that it was time to finish the roofing. Since it would have taken too long to split cedar shingles, Father decided to make a temporary roof out of birch bark. Uncle Wilho was the first to teach Matti about birch bark. One spring when Matti was small, Wilho had caught him peeling bark. “The tree will die unless you time it properly,” he scolded.

Wilho then showed Matti how to study the trees until the bark was ready to release. Father would have taken the hatchet and gotten the bark for Matti, but Wilho was a patient teacher. For several days in a row he watched Matti make a tiny slit down the side of a birch. Each time Wilho shook his head. Finally a thin layer of bark curled back from Matti’s cut, and Wilho smiled. That winter Wilho showed Matti how birch bark could be shaped into a bowl or a berry basket, and how it could be woven into shoes and packsacks that were stronger than canvas and lighter than leather.

On the day that Father and Matti harvested the bark, birch sap stuck to their hatchet blades and their hands. Even as the sweet scents of earth and sugar lingered in the air, Matti felt a great sadness sweep over him. For with Uncle Wilho gone, spring and the wonder of the white bark leaping free would never be the same.

Matti’s crow found new ways of getting into trouble. One day when Father and Matti were skidding some firewood, the twins discovered a patch of wild strawberries. Anna asked Father if they could move the plants to the garden.

Wilho had spent the morning alternately perching on Matti’s shoulder and riding on Maude’s back (Katie, of course, would not permit such a thing). Wilho watched the girls as they dug up the blossoming plants and carried them back to the garden.

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