485 
TILE AMERICAN-SCA XI) IN A VIA X R E VIE JV 
Children Offering Strawberries at a Finnish Railway Station 
Compared to his richer cousin, the Finnish-American miner in 
the copper region of Michigan, Iwana Rapponen is a king in his own 
right, where the other is little better than a slave. And no conqueror 
is more jubilant over what he has accomplished. He is so prosperous 
that he has actually acquired a horse, whose good parts he pointed 
out to us with pride. The kantele in the corner of his cottage was 
his musical instrument, and the co-operative magazine Pellervo on 
his rude table was his library, the science on every page part and parcel 
of his education. After lunch he showed us all his various improve¬ 
ments. He took us to where he had constructed a series of hollowed 
trunks through which flowed running water. At the end of the water¬ 
way were set up a primitive turbine and lathe, and beside it lay a 
pile of shingles. Behold the local shingle factoiy which supplied all 
the farms in the community! His property was so far improved that 
he had built a tar-house; and all thanks to his co-operative banking 
society. 
We left much too soon to please Iwana. Why go back to Amer¬ 
ica when there was so much more to see on his farm? Still chatting 
and joking in Finnish and protesting, he accompanied us down to 
the lake. “You could spend a month on my place,” he declared, 
