Top of the World Stories for Boys and Girls (Paperback)

Excerpt: ..."little Lapp." They could not say anything else, for they could not talk Lapp. And then they traveled away farther north, to the Arctic Ocean and the northernmost point of Europe which is called the North Cape. The Lapp woman liked the strange gentlemen and their sweet snow, and she began from that time to call her boy "Lappelil." "I think Sampo a much better name," said the man, rather vexed. "Sampo means 'riches, ' and I tell you, Mother, don't spoil the name For, some time, Sampo will become the king of the Lapps, and reign over thousands of reindeer and fifty Lapp huts." "Yes, but Lappelil sounds so pretty," said the woman. And she called the boy "Lappelil," and the man called him "Sampo." He was, however, not christened yet, for at that time there was no priest within a hundred miles. "Next year we will go to the priest and let him christen the boy," the man used to say. But next year something came in the way, and the journey did not take place, and the boy did not get christened. Sampo Lappelil was now a fat little fellow seven or eight years old, with black hair and brown eyes; he had a snub nose and a broad mouth just like his papa's; in Lapland a face must have such features if it is to be thought really fine. Sampo was not a stupid boy for his age; he had his own little snow-shoes and on them he danced over the high hills near the Tana; and his own little reindeer which he harnessed before his own pulk. You should have seen how the snow blew about him, as he rushed off over the ice and the high snow-drifts, so that nothing of the boy was to be seen but a tuft of his black hair "I shall never feel quite safe until the boy is christened," the Lapp woman often said. "The wolves may get him some fine day here on the mountains, or he may meet Hiisi's reindeer with the golden horns