Produced by Riikka Talonpoika, Cathy Smith and PG Distributed
Proofreaders
by
Johannes Linnankoski
From the Finnish. Original Title: "Laulu Tulipunaisesta Kukasta"First Published in 1920.
The setting sun shone on the wooded slopes of the hill. He clasped thenearest trees in a burning embrace, offered his hand to those fartheroff, and gave to them all a sparkling smile.
There was joy on the hillside.
The summer wind told fairy tales from the south. Told of the treesthere, how tall they are, how dense the forests, and the earth, how itsteams in the heat. How the people are dark as shadows, and their eyesflashing with light. And all the trees in the wood strained their earsto listen.
The cuckoo perched in the red-blossomed pine, near the reddest clusterof all. "It may be as lovely as lovely can be," cuckooed he, "butnowhere does the heart throb with delight as in Finland forests inspring, and nowhere is such music in the air."
All the hillside nodded approvingly.
In a little glade half-way down the slope some newly-felled firs laytumbled this way and that—their red-blossomed tops were tremblingstill.
On one of the stems a youth was seated.
He was tall and slender, as the trees he had just felled. His hatswung on a twig, coat and waistcoat were hung on a withered branch.His strong brown chest showed behind the white of the open shirt; theupturned sleeves bared his powerful, sunburnt arms. He sat leaningforward, looking at his right arm, bending and stretching it, watchingthe muscles swell and the sinews tighten under the skin.
The young man laughed.
He caught up his axe, held it straight out at arm's length, andflourished it gaily.
"Twenty-five down already, and the axe as light as ever!"
The cuckoo called. The young man looked toward the top of the hill."A wonderful spring," he thought. "Never have the trees flowered soblood-red and bright, nor the brook sung so merrily, nor the cuckoocalled so near. 'T would be no surprise to see the wood-sprite herselfc