Mighty Mikko Part 38

"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.

[Decoration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Here are three of us and see, here on the floor is our harvest already divided into three heaps"_]

[Decoration]

ADVENTURE IX

THE HARVEST

[Decoration]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _He dropped it in the water and of course it spread out far and wide and the current carried it off_]

[Decoration]

ADVENTURE X

THE PORRIDGE

[Decoration]

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.