Two Little Finns by Mary E. Ropes

EARLY in the present century-that is to say, somewhere about the / year 1816-there lived on the borders of a great forest in Finland a / woodcutter and his two children. Their home was a log hut built in two / storeys. On the lower floor was a kitchen, a tiny corner of which was / screened off for a bedroom, while upstairs were two small chambers, / one for the man, Grubert Reuss, and the other for his little daughter, / Blonda, a girl eleven years of age. The boy, Anthony, commonly called / Tonie, who was thirteen, slept downstairs, and made himself very / useful, especially in the early mornings, by bringing in wood, filling / the water-tub from the lake that bounded this part of the forest on one / side, lighting the fire, and sweeping out the kitchen all ready for / Blonda when she came down to prepare breakfast.

They were very poor-Grubert and his children-but this did not hinder / them from being contented and happy. Their food was coarse and wanting / in variety, consisting for the most part of black rye bread, barley / porridge, vegetable soup, eggs, goat's milk, and the mushrooms, roots / and berries that they found in the woods. But they had enough to eat, / and their clothing was not of an expensive kind; so they managed to / get along very well, especially now that Blonda was becoming quite a / clever little housekeeper, and was able to make her father's earnings / go almost as far as her mother had done in years gone by, before the / fever which devastated that part of Finland swept her away, leaving the / little home bereft.