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Formal and Informal
Education During the Rise
of Greek Nationalism
Learning to be Greek

Theodore G. Zervas
Formal and Informal Education during the
Rise of Greek Nationalism
 Theodore G. Zervas

Formal and Informal

Education during the
Rise of Greek
Nationalism
Learning to be Greek
Theodore G. Zervas
North Park University
Chicago, Illinois, USA

ISBN 978-1-137-48414-7    ISBN 978-1-137-48415-4 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48415-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016960892

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
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electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: © Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
For Elenios
 Preface

This book began in the fall of 2014 with a very simple question. Have
children always learned and did people always teach children? My per-
sonal and academic background led me to look at this question more
closely in Greece. Both my parents were born there, and according to
them our ancestors have lived in Greece for as long as they could remem-
ber. My grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents
were all farmers. My earliest Greek ancestors were also likely farmers, with
the occasional builder, priest, trader, or philosopher, going back to about
7000 BCE when agriculture was first introduced into the Balkans by
Neolithic farmers from the Middle East. These early farmers ran into local
hunter-gathers and taught them how to farm. It was one of the greatest
technological breakthroughs ever introduced in human history. Farming
provided easy access to food, it was safer than hunting and gathering food,
and gave humankind more free time to come up with new ideas and ways
to make human life easier. From the time these farmers arrived in the
Balkans, a revolution in farming spread rapidly throughout the rest of the
world.
Whole communities worked the land alongside one another, with
parents, grandparents, children, and other members of the community
depending on the land for survival. Extended families lived within a com-
munity. Children bonded with their parents and grandparents through
their work with them. They watched and admired their mothers and
fathers as they transformed the land, took care of the home, and created
wonderful things with their hands. Children were great assets to the fam-
ily. They provided labor on the farm and help within the home and family.

vii
viii PREFACE

Farming was a breakthrough in the way people lived, worked, and

interacted with one another. The land was undoubtedly important to
these early peoples, so much so that parents and grandparents taught the
skills of farming to their children who passed it on to their children. Towns
and cities sprung up around the land and with them came institutions such
as government, religion, organized armies, and a complex writing sys-
tem. This way of living would continue for several millennia. Some 9000
years later, my father and mother would break our perennial family tradi-
tion of farming. They would give up farming and adopt more “modern”
ways of living. My father became an insurance salesmen and my mother
a factory worker; both later would become successful restaurateurs. Both
their first names are nonetheless vestiges of our family past: my father
is named Yiorgios “farmer” and my mother Demetria, after the ancient
Greek patron goddess of farming Demeter. They are the first in my fam-
ily to have never picked up a spade or scythe and systematically worked a
Greek farm.
Even today, a recent DNA test I took shows that more of my ancestors
were farmers than hunter-gatherers. I suppose farming still runs in my
blood. My older brother and I are the first within our family to receive
a formal education beyond high school. Our forebears also never taught
us the intricacies of farming the Argolis plain. How did farming continue
for so long in Greece and other parts of the world? Education was at the
core of faming’s longstanding success. But for most of human history
there were no schools to teach people how to farm, nor were there formal
institutions to teach this practice to children. There were no set curricula,
no lesson plans, nor formal assessments on farming.
This book is set in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in
Greece, and it is about learning in both formal and informal learning set-
tings. Like the practice of farming, people have always learned from one
another in informal learning settings. Children have always learned and
there were always teachers who taught them. Four years ago, my son was
born. For several weeks prior to his birth, my wife and I perused several
books and Internet sites trying to find a fitting name for our soon-to-­
arrive son. Finally, we came up with the name Elenios after my paternal
grandmother Eleni. We were surprised to find that there was no mention
of Elenios in the historical record. Even today, when we travel to Greece
and people ask our son his name, they look curiously at my wife and I and
ask “And who was Elenios again?” Even they seem to think that there was
someone important at some point named Elenios.
 PREFACE ix

Why has the topic of informal learning gained so little attention from
historians, educational theorists, and teachers alike? Why do we think of
education as only occurring after the modern period and within the four
walls of a school classroom? John Dewey understood the importance of
learning by doing or learning through experience. Dewey, who spent time
as a child on his grandparent’s farm in Vermont, found this experience to
be one of his most valuable learning experiences. For Dewey, “Education
was not preparation for life; education was life itself!” Like Dewey, I won-
der what is the best education for children today. Will children learn more
in school, or will they learn more outside the school and classroom? And
if children learn more from their life experiences should we continue to
assume that a good education is only found within the school?

Theodore G. Zervas
Chicago
2016
 Contents

1 Introduction: Learning Beyond the School and Classroom1

2 Family, Community, and Childhood in the Late Nineteenth

and Early Twentieth Century Greece31

3 The School and the Textbook63

4 Greek Children’s Literature89

5 Learning Informally Through Story, Song, and Children’s

Shadow Theater111

6 Lives of Informal Learning137

7 Conclusion: Informal Learning Today and Beyond159

Bibliography 167

Index 177

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Learning Beyond the School

and Classroom

In today’s world, learning occurs in almost every social setting. Some of

these learning settings are more noticeable than others. The more obvi-
ous is the school classroom where each day children explore a number of
topics, engage in a variety of learning activities, and raise questions on a
number of issues and problems. Learning occurs in the local library or
bookstore, where reading and research enables one to discover something
new and interesting. Learning also occurs in the home, where reading the
Sunday morning newspaper, working on the following day’s homework
assignment, or dabbling over the Internet often exposes one to some-
thing novel and fresh. Other learning settings are not so noticeable: the
work office, where attending meetings, answering emails and phone calls,
and perusing lengthy reports, becomes more of a burden than a learning
experience, or the local coffee shop where patrons sometimes learn from
one another about the day’s news and weather, or even share local gossip.
Most people learn something new every day. This is because most
humans are curious creatures with an innate desire to learn something
that they did not already know. When people process information, we
could say that they are engaged in the act of learning. In fact, learning
is often taken for granted. Certain books may be more interesting to us
than others, certain people may be more insightful than others, and we
may find certain movies, television shows, or games to be more entertain-
ing than others. In many instances, we are not aware that we are learning
(perhaps because that light bulb on top of our heads does not radiate as

© The Author(s) 2017 1

T.G. Zervas, Formal and Informal Education during the Rise of
Greek Nationalism, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48415-4_1
2 T.G. ZERVAS

often as we like), but we know that we begin to learn almost immediately

after we come into this world, and that this process continues throughout
our lives.
Our first encounters with learning could be described at best as rudi-
mentary: we begin by seeing, touching, smelling, and tasting things so
that we can make better sense of the world around us. Once we hone our
senses, we develop a natural urge to move beyond our familiar confines
and explore new uncharted spaces. We become more independent and we
try to touch, observe, or even taste anything that is new to us. We begin
to compare things and to find similarities and differences between them.
Others also assist in our learning. They show us how to do simple tasks,
stack wooden blocks, fit various shapes through narrow spaces, point at
familiar objects, clap our hands, or even blow kisses to those who care
for us. We are also exposed to an assortment of stories and songs, we are
introduced to games and books, and we learn from exploring our environ-
ment and socializing with others.
Later, we attend school, a place where learning is more formal and
better regulated. We now have experts who teach and help augment our
learning processes in an environment where learning is encouraged and
supported by our families, community, and school. By the time we are
adults, our learning continues, in the college classroom, the pottery class,
the friendly book club, the opera, our travels, and our conversations and
interactions with friends, colleagues, and others close to us. As we become
older, the proliferation of learning intensifies. We are able to process infor-
mation faster, we learn from our personal experiences, and we are capable
of using more tools to enhance our learning. We ask more complex ques-
tions while at the same time seeking answers to those questions, and we
observe and reflect on what we have heard, seen, or read. Our beliefs and
opinions are firmed up, and our world seems to begin to make more and
more sense to us with every new day. We are intrigued when we learn
something new, and, for those of us who long for a life of learning, we
politely bow our heads, humbly acknowledging to ourselves that there is
far more to be learned.
Everybody learns, and humankind has been learning since the begin-
ning of our existence. Early on, learning was critical to humankind’s sur-
vival. For millennia, useful information was passed from one generation
to the next so that human life would continue to prosper and future gen-
erations would continue our existence. For example, fathers taught their
children how to fish and hunt, mothers showed their offspring how to
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 3

plant and gather food, and older siblings taught their younger brothers
and sisters how to fetch water and tend to livestock. We also learned from
our experiences, such as not to touch fire after burning our hands on it, to
resist the urge to climb on things from which we had fallen, and generally
to avoid places that appeared dangerous or threatening.
Over the centuries, information and knowledge were adapted so that
we could adjust to the constant changes occurring in our world. The
arrival of the modern age brought about new inventions, ideas, and ways
of living and learning, all of which were created by humankind and built
over the centuries from a “passing-on” of information from one genera-
tion to the next. Today, we continue to learn, but our modern world has
transformed the way that we learn. Our brains have for the most part
remained the same size for the past 200,000 years, and we continue to
process information in the same way as our ancestors did millennia ago.
We still learn from our personal experiences and, because we are social
animals, we learn from one another.
So what has changed? We have access to much more information
via books and the Internet, and we can communicate and learn from a
wider range of people than we were capable of in our distant past. We can
retrieve obscure tidbits of information in less time that it takes the human
heart to beat, and we have a multitude of innovative tools to help us pro-
cess that information. Our living environment, from which we live and
learn, has also been transformed. No longer does learning occur within
the narrow space of the local school and community. Today, cyberspace
has become an inescapable feature for the modern day learner. We can
jump on the Internet, post a question, and receive an answer to that ques-
tion from someone who lives 5,000 miles away. We can communicate with
teachers, classmates, colleagues, friends, and family members through a
myriad of intricate telecommunication devices. We can also find almost
any book, article, movie, or song, and have it electronically delivered to
us in an instant on our computer, phone, or other sophisticated electronic
instrument. Learning has truly become boundless, and its possibilities are
endless.

SIGNIFICANCE OF INFORMAL LEARNING

This book is about how young learners in Greece learned to be Greek in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in informal educational
settings. This introductory chapter addresses the main questions that this
4 T.G. ZERVAS

book sets out to answer, explores informal learning’s historical contours

by evaluating change and continuity over time, and considers social, politi-
cal, and cultural factors that impacted informal learning. By focusing on
the importance of informal learning in late nineteenth and early twentieth
century Greece, this book addresses learning outside the school. At the
same time, what children learned and how they learned helps shed light
on a number of attitudes, tensions, ambiguities, and agendas, both mani-
festing from the state and from the child learner. In this and other ways,
this book investigates informal modes of learning in Greece from 1880 to
1930, while set in the backdrop of Greek nationalist interests and agendas.
The interplay between what the child learned and who directed the learn-
ing makes for a particularly focused study on learning outside the school
setting. As such, this study is not heavily focused on the use of archival
and other state records, but depends on an array of sources which targeted
child learners outside the school setting. These include children’s books
and toys, magazines, memoirs, and transcribed children’s theater shows.
The years 1880–1930 were carefully chosen for this study. Beginning in
1880, we have what many historians have noted to be the height of Greek
nationalist ambitions in the Balkans. Through Greece’s longstanding and
ambitious policy, the Megali Idea (Grand Idea), a nationalist Greek state
aspired to reclaim territories deemed to be part of modern Greece’s his-
toric, cultural, and geographical space. From 1880 to the end of the First
World War (1918), the Greek state more than doubled its geographic size
in the Balkans. It had incorporated most of Macedonia, Epirus, Western
and Eastern Thrace, all of Thessaly, parts of Asia Minor, and a number of
islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas. By 1923, these ambitions come to
an abrupt stop after Greece’s military defeat by Turkey and the signing of
the Lausanne Treaty in 1923.
The pivotal events of the period, such as the Balkan Wars 1912–1913,
the First World War 1914–1918, and the Greek disaster in Smyrna in
1922, provided the conditions for the production of particular types of
stories, games, songs, and even historical accounts, which were forged
within the socio-political contexts of the time. This 50-year period,
although historically broad, allows us to track the inherent shift of Greek
nationalist attitudes from an aggressively ambitious nationalist state to one
that regresses geopolitically by seeking international peace and political
stability. Moreover, by looking at what children learned, first in late nine-
teenth century Greece and then after the Greek disaster in Smyrna, this
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 5

book offers a new perspective on the already laden history of modern

nationalism.
Thus, the history of informal learning is well placed to contribute to
the challenge of evaluating changes and continuities in Greek geopolitical
attitudes that emerged in Greece, and more broadly in the Balkans, from
the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Moreover, the broad
preoccupation of formal and informal learning by both state actors and its
everyday participants reproduced convergent educational goals and agen-
das. What children learned was surely influenced by what was occurring
at the time, but at the same time the Greek state was concerned that what
children learned outside school supported the nation-state’s interests.
The rise of nationalism in Greece, the advancement of a Greek national
identity, and the promulgation of a Greek national project all influenced
how and what children learned both within and outside the school. As
such, this book seeks to contribute to the already explicit literature on
learning that focuses almost exclusively on learning within formal edu-
cational settings. We must not forget that learning does not only occur
within the four walls of the school classroom, and that learning has always
occurred outside the school in places such as the home, the playground,
and more generally within the local community. For this study, the inter-
play between the home, community, and school, and the relationship
between the learner and those they interacted and learned with, plays a
critical role in how a child learned to be Greek prior to entering school
and during the earliest stages of the child’s formal education.
By focusing on informal modes of learning, such as a child’s early expo-
sure to children’s stories, folk tales, games, songs, and theater, as well
as books and magazines/periodicals that children read (or were read to
the child by others), this book addresses learning outside the confines of
the school. What the child learned prior to entering school and what the
child learned in the early stages of their formal education helped shape
the child’s identity. In other words, the stories, games, songs, and theater
that were made available to children assisted in forging a Greek national
consciousness.
Nation-states have almost always been interested in what their citi-
zens are learning in private, and whether the dissemination of certain
information supports the state’s interests and agendas. Are there individu-
als who are privately working against the state? And is information that is
being disseminated being used to harm the nation and state? These types
of questions have recently been raised in the United States. Criticism of
6 T.G. ZERVAS

the National Security Agency (NSA) for actively monitoring emails, phone
calls, and Internet searches for the sake of “national security” have become
a hot topic, which centers mostly around national security at the expense
of civil liberties. In 2011, Al-Qaeda’s official English magazine published
an article revealing to its readers how to build a primitive bomb (using
over the counter items) in your mother’s kitchen. The article encouraged
its readers to use the homemade bomb on American and western targets.
What is the public learning in private, and from whom are they learning?
Such questions drive much of the U.S. government’s security and terror-
ism policy today. Other governments have been historically more involved
in monitoring the dissemination of information to their public. In Stalinist
Russia, education across the Soviet Union was monitored both within and
outside the school. In North Korea, children today are expected to recite
national songs on cue, and in Cuba, citizens have limited access to the
Internet. A loyalty and allegiance to the nation-state has also been raised
today. In recent years, the issue of citizens turning against their home
country and people has captured the attention of the world. State govern-
ments are finding that, while a citizen is born, raised, and even educated
in a particular country, their allegiance can easily shift. Indeed, what chil-
dren learn outside the state-sponsored school truly shapes their loyalty to
their state and government. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century
Greece is no exception to this, but there is a good case to show how Greek
state interest extended into the private lives of children at a time when the
Greek state needed to garner public support.

CHAPTER OVERVIEW
This book is organized into seven chapters. This chapter gives an exegesis
of informal learning as well as its importance in national identity forma-
tion. It discusses universal learning and the uses of state-run schooling for
social, economic, and cultural purposes. It offers several comparative and
international perspectives of informal learning as well how informal learn-
ing was used in Greece to help shape a national identity.
Chapter 2 explores childhood and the Greek family and community
in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Greece. It relates how the
family was important throughout Greece, and considers a fundamental
unit where values and customs were transmitted to children in informal
learning settings. Informal learning, however, differed between rural and
urban communities. Social–structural differences between rural and urban
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 7

communities were vast, and class and income also played an important
role in how children learned in informal learning settings. In rural com-
munities, the family and other members of the community directed much
of the learning for children. In cities like Athens and Thessaloniki, this
varied depending on social class and economic status. Wealthier children,
for example, typically had more access to manufactured or mass-produced
toys and books, while rural poor children often relied on what was available
to them in their homes and communities. In both settings, nonetheless,
women formed the primary caregivers, informal teachers, and socializ-
ers of children. Greek minorities were also important to the processes of
informal learning, specifically non-Greek or multilingual-speaking groups
such as the Arvanites (Albanian), Vlachs (Aromanian), and Slavic-speaking
people who lived in Greece for several centuries prior to Greek indepen-
dence. This chapter concludes by discussing these groups as well as how
they developed stories and songs of their own which were taught in infor-
mal settings.
Chapter 3 examines the school textbook and the school experience.
While most of this book focuses on learning outside the centralized Greek
school, it is difficult to ignore the role that the schools played in influenc-
ing what children learned in informal learning settings. Historically, the
modern school, which is generally an extension of the state apparatus, reg-
ulates what children learn and how they learn through the promotion of
state-mandated curricula, the adoption of textbooks, and the preparation
and selection of teachers through state-designated or -supervised teacher-
training programs. Informal education in Greece was in many ways regu-
lated by the Greek state and helped serve the state’s interests and agendas.
Through a centralized school system, the Greek state was able to influence
and even control what children learned in their communities. Moreover,
the state-sponsored school and what children learned in school influenced
what was taught to children in their homes and communities.
Chapter 4 examines late nineteenth and early twentieth century Greek
children’s literature. It begins with a discussion on the importance of read-
ing in informal learning contexts, and how children’s literature and other
stories learned by children in informal learning settings helped shape the
child’s national identity. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, a wealth of children’s magazines and books were popularized
and read by children both outside and within the school. Some of these
stories were imported into Greece from western Europe while others were
Greek-authored. One such author, Penelope Delta, for decades inspired
8 T.G. ZERVAS

generations of youth with her historical novels. Several of her children’s

books such as Για την Πατρίδα (For the Homeland, 1909), Παραμύθι Χωρίς
Όνομα (Tale Without a Name, 1910), and Την Εποχή του Βουλγαροκτόνος
(In the Age of Bulgar Slayer, 1911) were ideologically and politically driven
and often nationalistic in their tone. As we will see in Chapter 4, Delta’s
books not only reflected common nationalist tropes and attitudes that
resonated throughout Greece for much of the period but also influenced
what children learned in informal learning settings.
Chapter 5 examines Greek folk tales and songs taught in informal
learning settings. One will see in this chapter that many of the first
folk tales children learned were Aesop’s fables. These creative stories,
originally written by the prolific ancient Greek fabler, Aesop, and later
adapted for a modern Greek audience, brought to life the natural and
physical environment while at the same time engaging young learners in
solving a moral or ethical dilemma. Aesop’s fables as well as other local
folk tales, stories, and songs became personal to the child. For many
children, these narrative accounts occurred where the child lived, the
characters were people the child knew, and the events had taken place
where the child lived. Children also learned these stories in an envi-
ronment that was welcoming, unrestricted, intimate, and comforting
to them; for example, in the home, in their communities, and around
people who were caring and nurturing. Learning outside the school also
yielded more opportunities for questioning, exploration, and further
inquiry that was rarely encouraged in the rigid unmitigated structure of
state-sponsored schooling.
Informal learning as recollected by autobiographical accounts (and dis-
cussed in greater detail in Chap. 6) generally agrees that this type of learn-
ing was a convivial and engaging experience which occurred with more
space and time for the experience than was being typically allotted in the
school classroom. During his youth, the celebrated Greek writer, Nikos
Kazantzakis (1883–1957), recounts this experience:

Each evening I sat on my stool amid the basil and marigolds of our court-
yards and read out loud all the various ordeals the saints had endured in
order to save their souls. The neighbors congregated around me with their
sewing or work—some knitted socks, others ground coffee and cleaned
mustard stalks…Distant seas unfolded in my childish imagination, boats cast
off furtively, monasteries glittered amid rocky crags, lions carried water to
the ascetics.1
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 9

Children also learned popular folk songs and games that spoke of the
nation’s miseries as well as the nation’s ambitions to expand its geographic
space. One such song from the late nineteenth century longed for the
incorporation of what were seen as unredeemed Greek territories:

All the world is glad;

and everyone is at play;
[but] Roumeli and the islands
grieving bitterly.
Roumeli, why are you not glad,
why are you not at play?2

As will be seen in later chapters, late nineteenth and early twentieth

century Greek nationalism (like most nationalisms) was obsessed by an
intense fixation on territory, territory that was seen to be rightfully Greek
even when its redistribution was at the expense of other nations.
Children’s shadow theater was also popular for much of nineteenth and
early twentieth century Greece. Chapter 4 follows with an examination of
Greek shadow-theater. The most notorious children’s theater of the time
was the so-called Karagiozis shadow puppet shows. The Karagiozis puppet
shows traveled and performed in almost every town and city in Greece,
entertaining generations of Greek children. Karagiozis, the protagonist
of the theater shows, a poor, swarthy, disheveled, humpback Greek, elec-
trified children audiences for over a century through his comical and
well-orchestrated antics. As we will see later in this chapter, Karagiozis
represents what it meant to be Greek in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. The Karagiozis plays are also a window into under-
standing how late nineteenth and early twentieth century Greek society
viewed itself as well as the immediate world around them.
Chapter 6 considers several personal accounts form the time and
about the time by several individuals. Personal accounts from Christos
Christovasilis, Alexandros Papadiamandis, Nikos Kazantzakis, Nikiforos
Lytras and Nicholaos Gyzis help shed light on the impact informal learn-
ing had on these individuals. Most of them learned stories from ancient
Greek mythology and history, as well as biblical stories, local folk tales
and more contemporary tales that dealt with Greece’s Ottoman and revo-
lutionary pasts. Moreover, some of the stories were exclusive to partic-
ular communities and regions of Greece, and were likely indigenous in
their nature (and told for generations prior to the creation of the Greek
10 T.G. ZERVAS

state), while others, or adapted versions, were first popularized in western

Europe. Finally, Chap. 7 concludes with a discussion of future research
directions for informal learning, as well as the importance of informal
learning for future studies.

DEFINING FORMAL AND INFORMAL LEARNING

While formal and state-regulated public education is mostly a modern
phenomenon, informal education has been around since the beginning
of humankind’s existence. Unlike informal education, formal education is
institutionalized, usually with an established curriculum and within desig-
nated areas. Informal education on the other hand can take place almost
anywhere. Usually, there is no established curriculum in informal edu-
cational settings, teachers are not formally trained, and both the teacher
and the learner are not always aware that they are teaching or learning.
Moreover, unlike formal education, informal education sees no distinc-
tion between social, economic, ethnic, or religious backgrounds. Informal
learning has always been open to all children, and parents, guardians,
grandparents, siblings, close relatives, and other members of a child’s
immediate community have always served as the child’s first teachers.
Prior to entering school, most children are exposed to a variety of infor-
mal learning activities. The child learns from play, from the songs and
stories that are sung or read to them, and from his/her personal and lived
experiences.
During the earliest stages of a child’s life, they try to make sense of
their world and immediate environment. The child implicitly compares
and contrasts objects, and judges their uses and purposes by using their
senses. In sum, the child is learning. The child is naturally curious, and
what the child, sees, hears, touches, or tastes for the first time is processed
as information. In the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacque Rousseau argued
that children should be exposed to a great many things, and that the more
a child sees, hears, touches, and tastes in the early stages of life, the easier
for the child to learn new things. Rousseau says,

To perceive is to sense; to compare is to judge. Judging and sensing are

not the same thing. By sensation, objects are presented to me separated,
isolated, such as they are in nature. By comparison I move them, transport
them, and so to speak. I superimpose them on one another in order to pro-
nounce of their difference or their likeness and generally on their relations.3
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 11

One can see this in the learning of almost any child today. A two-year-
old child, for example, may see a number of balls in room (all of which
are different sizes and colors), and still understand that they are all balls.
How does the child know this? The child compares and contrasts in order
to make sense of the object. Is it round? Does it bounce? Is it like other
objects that the child has seen or played with before? In the end, the child
is able to deduce that size and color do not matter, since all balls pretty
much do the same thing. This seemingly simple yet complex comparison
of objects shows how our senses help us to learn during our earliest stages
of life. We continue to compare new tastes, sounds, sights, and textures to
things with which we are already familiar, but our comparisons get much
more complex as we get older, because we are able to see, hear, touch, and
taste more things. Technological innovations have also helped to expand
and broaden our learning by allowing us to see, hear, taste, and feel things
that we were once incapable of. The microscope, for example, has enabled
us to see beyond the surface of living objects and into the depths of our
molecular make-up. The telescope has taken us beyond our planet’s
geography and into uncharted worlds, and even the seas, oceans, and the
ground beneath our feet have helped us see new unexplored worlds.
One’s personal experience is also another way one learns in informal
learning settings. Plato best illustrates this in the Meno. In the Meno,
Socrates, Plato’s teacher and friend, proves to one of his skeptics that
an uneducated slave-boy is capable of doing geometric equations, even
though the boy has not been formally taught geometry.4 Drawing on the
boy’s previous knowledge, Socrates asks the boy a series of questions on
the length and size of squares. Socrates carefully crafts his questions so
that they relate to the boy’s life experiences. In the end, the boy is able
to solve the geometric problem, and Socrates proves his critics wrong.5 In
this case, because one does not have a formal education does not mean
that they are not capable of learning.
One is also reminded that, for all its importance in the fields of his-
tory and education, informal learning is a mostly unexplored topic that
has received limited historiographical attention. Historians have studied in
great detail what and how children learned in formal educational settings
in nations across the world. Similarly, scholars of education have examined
the methods, approaches, and mechanics of teaching and learning. Few
scholars, however, have looked at what and how children learn outside the
formal school setting.
12 T.G. ZERVAS

Rosemary C. Henze’s study on informal teaching and learning in

Greece sheds some light on how knowledge and skills of everyday life
were transmitted to children by family and community members in a small
rural Greek town. Although not concerned with national identity forma-
tion, Henze’s study found that elders who served as teachers were repeat-
edly instructing children in informal learning settings. One of the goals of
these “teacher-elders” was to pass on their cultural norms and traditions
to future generations. Henze found that community elders were actively
involved in teaching children local dances, how to make coffee, and how
to perform cupping (βεντούζα), all of which were intended to teach the
child how to live and work within the community. Henze makes a distinc-
tion between formal and informal education. She states,

Formal education takes on the normative status, whereas non-formal and

informal appear, in their morphology at least, to be variants of this norm.
Historically, however, formal schooling is a variant and informal education
the norm, for mass formal schooling occupies less than a century in history
and prehistory of the human race.6

As Henze’s study suggests, informal education also provides us with

an understanding of how the family, and community transmit knowledge
and skills to future generations. The skills that children learn prepare them
for community and cultural life. During the process, the community and
family also instill specific cultural norms into the child. These norms are
universally understood and followed within society, i.e.: When to lead a
dance? How to serve coffee to guests? How to speak and communicate
properly? Although Henze does not go into great detail on how and what
children learned in more formalized learning settings, one could deduce
that, within the various social contexts examined by Henze, children are
informed on the customs and traditions of the broader society. Within
these broad social contexts, customs and traditions are more or less uni-
versal throughout Greece. Distinctions may exist in the ways that infor-
mation is transmitted, as well as which specific customs and traditions are
passed on; however, all seek to maintain broader cultural practices that
exist outside the community. We know that other practices are more uni-
versal, organic, and cross cultural barriers, such as a child curled up next to
his mother as she reads to him, children sitting attentively while watching
television, children talking to their toys while playing, and children singing
songs, laughing, and playing with one another in the school playground.
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 13

Such practices fit the cliché that “kids are kids” regardless where they live,
and that certain social behaviors are universal when it comes to learning.
In other words, children have always been learning and will continue to
learn both inside and outside the school.
For much of modern Greece’s history, the household constituted the
primary social unit of which cultural and social structures were taught to
children (see more on this topic in the next chapter). The home and the
community were centers for the production and reproduction of certain
social and cultural norms taught to children by family members and other
community members.7 While children understood that they belonged to a
family unit or even a local community, to what extent did they understand
they were part of a broader community or nation?

CHILDREN AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

Recent research in child development provides us with a better under-
standing of how children begin to understand the concept of self, other,
and belonging to a broader national group.8 Children begin to understand
the notion of being part of a national community as early as age three.9 It
consists of a complex system of knowledge, emotions, and beliefs about
the nation that is later reinforced in the school.10 It involves traits of the
national group. For example, we speak this language, we wear these cloths,
we eat these foods, and we believe in these things. It involves a common
genealogy, making the nation a collection of families all descended from
a common ancestor. A child understands that this is my father, my grand-
father is my father’s father, and my great-grandfather is my grandfather’s
father, or even that we may be descendants of a common human ances-
tor like an Adam and an Eve, and that we share this ancestry with others
within our community.
Emblems and symbols also help reinforce notions of belonging to a
nation. There is a church in my town, as there are churches in almost all
towns near where I live, our flag waves across most of our country, and we
all sing the same national anthem. There are also national traditions and
holidays to help bind the nation. National holidays such as the 25th of
March (Greek Independence Day), and religious holidays like Christmas,
Easter, and the Dormition of the Virgin, are all observed by members of
the nation. At some point, children also learn the location of where they
live, whether an address, a street, a village, a town, a city, or a country, and
associate this with the notion of “home” and “belonging.” Where they
14 T.G. ZERVAS

live becomes, moreover, an extension of who they are in a world of people

whom they have encountered. Home is where their family members live,
it is a place where their ancestors may have lived, and a place they play,
sleep, explore, and learn.
They develop language, and the language they learn to speak helps
to identify who they are. Margaret Meek notes that, “Local cultures are
the strongest social bonds. In most people, they establish unconscious
conformity and allegiance. Language is an obvious cohesive factor every-
where.”11 Language helps children to communicate with those close to
them. People that do not speak their language make it difficult for chil-
dren to connect with them and to find similarities. Children, however,
tend to think of a national identity as being natural and not artificial.
They assume that they would have always been who they are, even if they
had lived somewhere else and if someone other than their parents had
raised them. However, we know that a child born in Vietnam, but raised
in France by French-speaking parents, will learn to speak French and feel
that she is French.
Thus, notions of national identity are abstract and subjective, and it is
easy for a child to feel that he/she is part of a broader national community
that extends outside their community. Children merely need to share the
implicit belief about the self in relation to the broader national group, and
how similar one is to the national type. Even today, children understand
that a shared history, language, and religion make them part of a nation. A
child can feel a sense of personal belonging to a national group, and that
they are full and equal partners in the national community. They need not
be well versed in the particularities of their nation’s history, nor may they
be familiar with the religious practices and traditions that help define their
nation. Traditions could be invented and practices could be adopted from
elsewhere. For example, in Greece today, ultra-nationalist groups like
Golden Dawn have retained traditional notions of what defines a Greek,
but have adopted symbols and practices from Nazi Germany (while ignor-
ing Nazi atrocities on the Greek people during the Second World War).
What matters to groups like Golden Dawn is that these practices and tra-
ditions become Greek. Nations often invent traditions and customs, and
even create national monuments to link the nation.12 Whether these tra-
ditions, customs, practices, symbols, and historical figures are part of the
nation does not matter, as what matters is that they are imbedded within
the memory of the people that they are part of the same nation.
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 15

It is easy for someone who is Greek today to define what it means to

be Greek. We speak Greek, we live in Greece, we are Greek Orthodox
Christians (at least the majority of us are), and our history and cul-
ture dates back to ancient Greece. Even a child understands that this is
what makes them Greek. Ernest Gellner’s seminal work, Nations and
Nationalism, argues that the culture in which one is taught to commu-
nicate shapes the core of one’s identity.13 Similarly, Karl Deutsch says,
“…it is easier for men to communicate within the same culture than
across its boundaries. In so far as a common culture facilitates com-
munication, it forms a community.”14 Social systems and networks of
communication shape one’s national identity, as when those systems are
extended outside the home and community, one is more likely to feel
that they are part of a national group. Moreover, a nation communicates
more effectively and acutely with one another than with people out-
side the group.15 For the purposes of this study, what is it that children
learned in informal learning settings that helped shape their national
identity and gave them a sense or feeling that they belonged to a Greek
national group? Arguably, for this to happen, children across Greece
would have had to learn the same stories, played the same games, sung
the same songs, and practiced the same customs and traditions. We
have to remember that parents and families had always been channeling
information to children prior to a Greek or Hellenic national awaken-
ing. In many instances, many of these stories and traditions were not
“Greek.” Some were certainly indigenous, others were borrowed, and
there were some whose origins are still dubious. Whether specific tradi-
tions and the production of specific information were Greek does not
matter, what matters is how they became Greek, how children saw them
to be Greek, and how they were later passed along to later generations
as being Greek.
Speaking the same language and following the same religion would
have reinforced notions of belonging to a Greek national group. But not
all of Greece spoke Greek after the Revolution, and not everybody was
Orthodox Christian (especially after the incorporation of parts of northern
Greece). In this case, a nation may try to look for similarities in religion
and language, or to undermine the importance of language and religion
to the national group or to convince/force groups to adopt the dominant
language and religion. The state may create stories, songs, and games, or
adopt what may exist within a particular community or communities and
16 T.G. ZERVAS

define them as being part of the broader heritage and patrimony of the
nation.
At the same time, it is easier for children to point out superficial dif-
ferences between themselves and others. Notions of belonging to a larger
group are only enforced through what children learn and how different
they are to others, and a sense of closeness to the national group. A sense
of belonging might also be linked to a sentiment of national solidarity and
cohesion; in other words, the feeling and belief that the nation constitutes
an integrated and cohesive whole. For example, a child roots for their
nation during a football match between their nation and another nation.
They take pride when their nation wins and are saddened if their nation
loses. Ultimately, they share this enthusiasm or sorrow with other mem-
bers of their community. They assume that the nation has always existed,
and that their ancestors shared the same feeling about the nation as they
do.
The child in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Greece usually
did not travel beyond their town, but they were still made familiar with
differences between themselves and other nations, both in the school and
the community. This helped strengthen bonds between members of the
nation. Greek schools helped to reinforce notions of differences between
the Greek people and other groups (see more on this topic in Chap. 4).
Stories were told to them about other nations and cultures. Their par-
ents, grandparents, and great-grandparents may have even interacted with
other peoples. After Greek independence (1821), beliefs about how others
viewed Greece also became important. Most of western Europe regarded
Greece as the birthplace of European and western civilization. Children
were taught that they came from an ancient civilization that helped shape
the western world. At the same time, children were taught that they were
slaves to the Turks for more than 400 years. In these two instances, the
Greek people as a group were united around subjective notions of cultural
and historic supremacy, as well as a common struggle that was shared by
all the members of the national community. For the most part, they were
not familiar with the specifics of Greeks history, and in many instances they
did not have a chronological frame of reference. They merely understood
that we are culturally superior to other nations, and we share certain prac-
tices and traditions with other Greeks, and that this helps make us a nation
that is unique among other nations. This, ultimately, was imbedded in the
minds of children early on, and was taught to them in informal learning
settings and within school.
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 17

INFORMAL LEARNING IN GREEK NATIONALIST CONTEXTS

Scholars have looked at how the teaching of Greek language and litera-
ture, as well as the teaching of a Greek national history in Greek schools,
assisted in forging a Greek national identity, but no scholar that I am
aware of thus far has critically explored the ways in which informal modes
of learning shaped a Greek national consciousness. Historically, the Greek
school, as a state apparatus, has been regulated, monitored, and controlled
by the state. The state (or state governing body) or, in the case of Greece,
the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, determines which
books are used in schools, which subjects or topics are taught, how they
are taught, and by whom they are taught. Informal education, on the
other hand, poses some difficulties when seeking to make concrete links
between state agendas and interest and its influences on society. Certainly,
it is less burdensome to track what children learned in school than what
they learned in their homes, because state-regulated education is usu-
ally publicized and documented whereas informal learning is usually kept
private.
We know that, in the case of Greece, the Greek school as a national
institution, and as an agent of the state, reproduced a historical con-
sciousness and a Greek national identity for much of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. The school was deemed as the ideal locale for
transmitting a Greek national identity. This was accomplished through
a centralized national school system, which was controlled and adminis-
tered by the state. More specifically, the teaching of one continuous and
seamless Greek national history from past to present assisted in the forma-
tion of a modern Greek national identity. A Greek national identity was
also predominately aligned with European notions of a Greek identity
which rested on a highly “imaginative” or even “imaginary” Greece that
dated back to antiquity. It assumed a synthesis of the transcendent ideals
of Hellas and modern Greece, and the existence of ancient Greece within
the cultural and historic framework of the modern Greek state. At the
same time, this identity was heavily linked to ancient Greek history and
Greek Orthodox Christianity, and arguably imported into Greece in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by western European and
diasporic Greek intellectuals, who advocated the creation of Greek state-
hood and the revival of ancient Greece in the form of Modern Greece.
Constantine Tsoukalas asserts,
18 T.G. ZERVAS

In full contrast with most national discourses, the discourses underlying a

Modern Greek identities have been largely imported. Indeed the main nar-
rative foundations of self-perceptions and images of Greeks were first laid
out in Western Europe as components of a broader representation of the
sources of European civilization.16

For much of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, Hellas served as

a locus for an autochthonous European heritage that was seen by many
western European intellectuals and elites as a cultural impetus for the rise
of the Renaissance, European Enlightenment, and modern European
hegemony and modernity. Western European intellectuals and Greeks liv-
ing in western and central Europe who envisaged the revival of classical
Greece largely championed the Greek uprising of 1821. The existence of
a modern Greek identity which derived from classical Greece served in
part to distinguish modern Greek superiority from the backwardness of it
occupiers, the Ottoman Turks. However, some European commentators
and scholars of the time, such as Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer (1790–1861),
through his Greek theory challenged modern Greek cultural claims to
ancient Greece, by asserting that the modern Greeks had few cultural or
even genetic links to the ancient Greeks, and that the ancient Greek popu-
lation in the Balkans was largely replaced by Slavic and Albanian groups
during the later Byzantine period (1204 ACE-1453 ACE). There were
certainly minority Slavic, Albanian, and Aromanian ethnic groups who
lived in Greece, and continue to live in Greece to this day (see more on
this in the next chapter). But during Fallmerayer’s time, what was more
significant was that the majority of the Greek-speaking population (par-
ticularly the rural population) within Greece’s humble post-revolutionary
borders did not necessarily see themselves as the direct descendants of the
ancient Greeks. They were connected more to familial clans, their local
towns and communities, or their Greek Orthodox faith. Be that as it may,
in order for modern Greece to claim an exclusive Hellenic or classical
Greek past, it had to first show a historic and cultural continuity from
ancient Greek past to the modern Greek present.
To challenge Fallmerayer and other European skeptics, the Greek
historian, Constantine Paparrigopoulos (1815–1891), concocted
his Greek historical chronology from which he had borrowed from
Spyridon Zambelios’s (1815–1881) Greek historical periodization. In
Paparrigopoulos’s History of the Greek Nation (1877), Greek history was
presented as one unbroken historical thread from the ancient past to the
 INTRODUCTION: LEARNING BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM 19

present. Paparrigopoulos distinguished three significant periods in the his-

tory of Greece: ancient, medieval, and modern Greece. Most of his his-
toriographical attention was devoted to ancient Greek history, from the
first settlements on the Greek peninsula to Alexander the Great. Nominal
attention was given to modern Greek history, which covered Ottoman
rule (1453) to the Greek Revolution (1821), and even less coverage was
devoted to medieval history, which covered the rise of Christianity to the
fall of Constantinople in 1453.17
More importantly, Paparrigopoulos’s point de capiton hypothesized
that a Greek national character had been maintained for millennia, and
that although Modern Greeks were Christians (unlike the ancient Greeks
who were pagan), they continued to maintain a distinguishable cultural
link with their ancient Greek ancestors. Along with Paparrigopulos’s peri-
odization of Greek history, a host of other institutions dealing with histo-
riography, linguistics, folklore, and education were developed to support
and demonstrate modern Greek cultural links to ancient Greece.
In the nineteenth century, the folklorist (λαογράφος) Nicholaos Politis
asserted that ancient Greek culture had survived in modern Greece
through the preservation of songs, stories, and other communal tradi-
tions that could be found in the Greek countryside. Thus, both from a
historical and ethnographic/anthropological perspective, a reconstituting
of a Greek national past emanated within contemporary frameworks of
Greek historiography and folklore. Their main objective was to reclaim a
cultural connection between post-revolutionary Greece and Greek antiq-
uity, and to tie Greece to the western world. By the end of the nineteenth
century, the fields of history and folklore were in step when it came to
nation building. Their discourses were reproduced in school textbooks
and school curricula as well as in children’s literature and more generally
in the Greek novel. Folk tales and rituals that had been practiced for gen-
erations in rural areas of Greece were deemed to be direct links to ancient
Greece, even though their origins were dubious.18 They were later adopted
in school readers and children’s books so that they could strengthen an
ancient Greek connection. Overall, this nineteenth century preoccupation
with linking the modern Greeks to the ancient Greeks required a mobili-
zation of ample resources and a commitment to imparting a mostly alien
past in the minds of the ordinary Greek citizen, who was not aware or not
so concerned with these ancient cultural links.
In all, after Greek independence, the Greek state looked to retrieve
the ancient Greek past through the national school system and the teach-
20 T.G. ZERVAS

ing of a national history. During much of the Ottoman period, Church-

run schools had to a large extent been successful in forging a national
consciousness for those peoples of the Ottoman Empire who formed the
Orthodox Christian community. These included both Greek- and non-
Greek-speaking peoples who defined themselves based on religious lines
rather than their national and ethnic heritages. Evidence also suggests
that non-Greek speakers and multilingual speakers found that a command
in the Greek language was a major social and economic advantage for
themselves and their children. Aromanian (Romanian), Arvanite (Tosk
Albanian), and Slavic speakers often encouraged their children to choose
Greek over their local languages. While many of these groups continued
to maintain their languages, they learned to identify as being Greek.
A Greek historical past that dated back to ancient Greece helped to
legitimize the Greek state, and succeeded for the most part in uniting its
people around a Greek national identity. By the late nineteenth century,
state educational interests and involvement extended outside the school.
High illiteracy rates and low attendance rates, as well as the lack of proper
school resources, led the Greek state to look at other possibilities for pro-
moting its national project.19 Children learned folk tales, songs, and sto-
ries that had been told for generations in their communities. At the same
time, new stories, songs, and folk tales were developed to foster a Greek
national consciousness. Western European stories were also imported and
translated into Greek, while Arvanitic, Slavic, and Aromanian songs also
became Greek. The relationship between formal and informal education,
and more generally the appropriation of learning for political and cultural
purposes by the Greek state, sought to extend the formation of national
identity beyond the state-sponsored school. A Greek national identity and
an understanding of what it meant to be Greek was thus extended into the
private life of the average Greek citizen. It was for these reasons that the
Greek state was interested in what children learned outside school. With
the expansion of roads and other means of transportation, as well as new
methods to reproduce and promote children’s stories, shows, and songs,
the state could further unite its nation around shared learning experiences
that occurred both within and outside the school.
What children learned and how they learned became part of a com-
monly shared experience for all children across Greece. It also helped
to reinforce unity and common national bonds. For the most part, the
Greek people shared a common language and religion, and the Greek
state worked vigorously in cementing those bonds by teaching a Greek
Another random document with
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 ANTTI. Mikä se nyt olisi parempi? Ehkä kuitenkin se kuusi
kuukautta tästä päivästä…!

SIPI. Kirjoittaa sitte sen. Minulle se on ihan yhdentekevä. Tuohon

noin: "kuuden kuukauden kuluttua…"

ANTTI (kirjoittaa tavaillen). "… kuuden… ku… lut… tua…"

SIPI. "… allamerkitystä päivästä."

ANTTI (kuin äsken). "… tystä… västä."

SIPI. Ja sitte, tuota, jos nyt ne brosentit välttämättä pitää olla

meidänkin kesken…

ANTTI. Eihän niitä muiltakaan ottamatta jätetä, niin…

SIPI. Eipä suinkaan. Lain määräämäthän ne on nekin. No,

pannaan ne sitte yhteen pääsumman kanssa, niin pääsee ainakin
niitä tässä erittäin pitemmältä kirjoittamasta.

No käypi.

ANTTI. No — niin. Hitaastihan tämä kynän kuletus käypi.

SIPI. Se tekee sitte (laskee miettien, käsi kasvoillaan)… se

puotirätinki… brosenttineen… niin paljon kuin… Jaa, se tekee
jämttiinsä neljä sataa viisikymmentä markkaa.

ANTTI. Vai tekee se jo niin äi'än?

SIPI. Tässähän se on minulla se tavaralasku mukanani. (Ottaa

sen lompakostaan). Laskee itse, että sen tietää oikeaksi. Kuusi
markkaa sadalta kuudessa kuukaudessa.
 ANTTI. Ka, uskonhan minä. Oikein kai se on.

SIPI. Kyllä sen pitäisi olla. No, kirjoittaa tuon jälkeen sitte sen
neljäsataa viisikymmentä. Ensin kirjaimilla.

ANTTI (kuin ennen) "… sataa… kym… mentä."

SIPI. Ja sitte vielä sulkumerkkien väliin numeroilla se sama

summa.

ANTTI. Vai pitää se vielä umeroillakin? [Talonpojissa sanotaan

usein "umero" eikä numero ja nollan nimi on "on." Tekijä.]

SIPI. Kahdestihan se pitää. Nelonen, viitonen ja nolla. Ja sitte iso

ässä ja pikku ämmä, se merkitsee Suomen markkaa.

ANTTI (kuin ennen). Neljä… viisi… on. Ja ässä ja ämmä.

Noinikään.

SIPI. Kas niin. Ja nyt tuon jälkeen, jossa seisoo "maksu saatu", on
lisättävä: "tavarassa."

ANTTI. Niin, niin, tavarassahan se on saatu. (Kirjoittaa:) "…

rassa."

SIPI. Paikan nimi on jo valmiiksi painettu sekin. Nyt vaan aika

tuohon ja nimi alle.

ANTTI (kirjoittaa). Tammikuun… Monesko se nyt onkaan?

SIPI. Kolmastoista se on tänään. Numeroilla vaan ja pikku p

jälkeen sekä vuosiluku.

ANTTI (kirjoittaa). Noin. Ja sitte nimi?

 SIPI. Tuohon kolkkaan: Antti Valkeapää, tilallinen.

ANTTI (kirjoitettuaan). Nyt kai se pitäisi olla…?

SIPI (ottaa ja katselee velkakirjaa). Kyllä välttää. Oikein hyvästikin.

(Korjaa kynällä.) Pari i-pistettä vaan on jäänyt panematta.

ANTTI. Vai jäi ne…?

SIPI. Kas niin. Nyt se on tehty ja… (Panee velkakirjan

lompakkoonsa.) Tässä minä nyt paikalla kuittaan tämän
tavaralaskun, niin ei tule kaksinkertaisia. (Kuittaa ja antaa laskun
Antille).

ANTTI. Niin, ka, vainkin. No, hyvin paljon vaan kiitoksia. Onhan se
nyt taas vähän niinkuin helpompikin olla. Ja sukkelaanhan se kävi.

SIPI. Su-u-ukkelaanhan se käypi, kun vaan kirjoittaa osaa.

ANTTI (nauraa hörähtää). Hö-hö! Eipä se nyt äi'ää maksa se

minunkaan osaamiseni (Ottaa paperossilaatikon piirongilta.) Eikös
nyt yksi paperossi…? (Tarjoo.)

SIPI (ottaa). Kiitos! — Unehtui tässä omat mukaan ottamatta.

(Sytyttää.)

ANTTI. Vaan ei ole minulla muita, kuin "komersia."..

SIPI. Eihän niitä "Sevilloja" kannata täällä maalla kaupaksikaan

pitää, kun niitä niin vähän ostetaan. Ja menettäähän ne nämäkin.

Toinen kohtaus.
 ANTTI, SIPI ja HILMA, sitte SOHVI.

HILMA (tulee perältä palttooseen puettuna ja huivi päässä). Hyvää

päivää! (Tervehtii Sipiä). Terve tultua! Äidiltä kuulin, että olet täällä.

SIPI. Täällähän me…

ANTTI. Luultiin, että jäisit suntiolle koko päiväksi.

HILMA. Pyysihän ne, vaan en jäänyt. (Riisuu palttoon ja huivin,

jotka viepi sivukammariin oikealle).

SIPI. Arvasit kai minun olevan täällä?

HILMA (toisesta huoneesta). Siltäpä se näyttää. Vaan sitä paitsi,

olihan siellä täkintikkaajia ilman minuakin.

ANTTI. Siellä, näet, oli täkkitalkoo.

SIPI (ivallaan). Vai niin, siellä morsiuspeitettä tehdään.

ANTTI (nauraa). Vanhaksi piiaksihan se on päättänyt suntion

Emma jäädä.

HILMA (palaa). Elkää tehkö pilkkaa. Emmalla on paljon tilauksia ja

hän ansaitsee rahaa aika lailla.

SIPI. Mutta oli kai siellä kielikellot nyt taas soimassa?

HILMA. Onpa maar' uutisia, jotka ehkä muitakin huvittavat.

SIPI. No, mitäpä ne olisi? Annapas kuulua!

HILMA. Aha! Vaan enpäs nyt sanokaan.

 SIPI. Jos et sinä sano, niin kertoo kai sen sitte muut.

HILMA. No, arvatkaapa, kuka on tänne tullut?

ANTTI ja SIPI. No?

HILMA. Siiri.

ANTTI. Jokohan nyt?

SIPI. Minne tänne?

HILMA. Vallströmin rouvan luo, tietysti.

SIPI. Kuka sitä…? Elkää joutavia!

HILMA. Todenperään! Eipäs usko!

ANTTI. Onhan se nyt vähän kuminallistakin, tuo.

SIPI. Tietysti. Tähän aikaan, kun juuri teatterit parhaillaan

näyttelevät.

HILMA. Siiripä kuuluukin eronneen teatterista.

SIPI. Ooo-ho?!!

ANTTI. Todenkoperään?

HILMA. Ihan totta. Ja Vallstömin rouva kuuluu olleen siitä niin

pahoillaan ja vihoissaan Siirille, ett'ei tahtonut häntä ensin
taloonsakaan ottaa.

ANTTI. M-h-h! No, mitäs se sitte on?

 SIPI. Mistäs syystä hän sitte olisi eronnut?

HILMA. Sitä en tiedä. Enkä muutakaan mitään. Mutta saadaan kai

se kohta kuulla.

SIPI. Kuinka niin?

ANTTI. Ai'otko mennä sinne?

HILMA. Enkä. Mitäs minä sinne…

SOHVI (tulee perältä).

AAKU (näkyy Sohvin jälessä porstuan ovella).

SOHVI. Et saa tulla! Mene tupaan Liisun luo! Kuuletkos?! (Sysää

AAKUN, joka itkeä nyyhkyttää, takaisin, ja vetää oven kiinni.) — No,
Hilmahan toi kylästä kummallisia uutisia.

SIPI. Niin. Eihän niitä tässä oikein tahdota uskoakaan.

HILMA. Uskokaa taikka elkää, sama se on minusta. En minä

häntä ole omin silmin nähnyt. Kerroin vaan, mitä itse kuulin.

SOHVI. Mikäs siinä on. Totta kai se on, konsa hän oli sanonut
tänään tulevansa meillä käymään.

SIPI. Vai niin! No, se on toista. Sitäpä ei Hilma meille sanonutkaan

(Katsahtaa silmäkulmien alta epäluottavasti Hilmaan.)

HILMA (hämillään). Enhän minä sitä vielä kerinnyt… Ja sanoinhan

minä, että sen saamme kai kohta kuulla.
 SIPI (kävelee miettiväisenä edestakaisin ja seisattuu väliin uunin
eteen, ikäänkuin lämmitelläkseen).

ANTTI. Sen tauttahan sinä sitte niin pian talkoosta palasitkin.

SOHVI. Vaan kummapa se nyt on, että Siiri tällä kertaa näin
sukkelaan meille ehättää, kun viime kesänä saatiin ihan loppuun
uottaa. Ja eiköhän siellä vaan ole Siirille jotakin tapahtunut, kun se
näin rutosti kaikki kesken heitti ja kotiin palasi.

HILMA (joka sisällisesti taistellen on Sipiä tarkastellut). Varmaan

hän nyt todenperään aikoo naimisiin mennä. Mitäpä sille muuta?

SOHVI. Kuka sen tietää. Joko hyväksi tahi pahaksi se vaan lienee.
—
(Nykäisee Anttia hihasta, kuiskaten). Antti, kuulehan! Tulehan vähän!
Minä tarvitsen sinua (SOHVI ja ANTTI menevät perälle.)

Kolmas kohtaus.

HILMA ja SIPI.

SIPI. Ei — pois minun sitte täytyy lähteä.

HILMA (juosten Sipin luo ja asettuen hänen ja oven väliin). Ei, ei,
Sipi! Mitä varten?!

SIPI. Mitäkö varten?! Tiedäthän itse, Ett'en olisi tiellä, tietysti.

HILMA. Mitä sinä…? Kenenkä?

SIPI. Teidän — sinun ja Siirin. Huomasinhan minä kyllä.

 HILMA. Voi! Mitä sinä…?!

SIPI. Ethän tahtonut sanoa…

HILMA. Ei se ollut sen tautta, Sipi. Usko minua: ei ollut.

SIPI. Hyvä, hyvä! No, minkäs sitte?

HILMA. Päinvastoin tahdoin, että jäisit — että saisin haastaa

kanssasi kahden kesken. Minä tahdon… Minun pitää…

SIPI. No, no. Vaan muutenkaan en itse tahtoisi jäädä — olla täällä,
kun hän tulee. (Käkee lähtemään, ojentaen Hilmalle kätensä.)

HILMA. Mutta voithan sitte mennä pois, jos hän tulee ja jos sinä et
tahdo jäädä. Vaan nyt sinun täytyy jäädä (ottaa Sipin lakin hänen
kädestään ja vie sen piirongille), kun minä pyydän. Jääthän, kun
minä pyydän?

SIPI. Olkoon nyt sitte, koska niin tahdot.

HILMA. Nyt sinä olit hyvä. Ja istu tähän kiikkutuoliin! (Vetää

kiikkutuolin lähemmäksi uunia.) Noinikään, — niin saamme haastella
ja lämmitellä hiiluksen ääressä.

SIPI (istuutuu kiikkutuoliin). No? Ja mitäs hauskaa sinulla nyt vielä

on kerrottavaa?

HILMA. Paikalla. (Kohentaa valkeata.)

SIPI. Tiedettiinkös kylässä vielä muutakin, vai?

HILMA. Kyllä. (Nostaa tuolin ja istuutuu vastapäätä uunia.)

Näetkös,
Sipi kulta, ne kun eivät anna minulle siellä rauhaa yhtään enää.

SIPI. No?

HILMA. Varsinkin nyt sen jälkeen, kun sait jouluksi puotikammarisi

ikkunoihin ne uutimet, niin aina kyselevät minulta, että eikös niitä
meidän kuuliaisia jo kohta pidetä.

SIPI. Arvasinhan. Vai sitä ne kielikellot siellä soittivat. No? Etkös

vastannut?

HILMA. Olenhan minä monastikin sanonut, että laskiaisen

aikaanhan sinä olet aikonut.

SIPI. Kas, mitäs niille sitte sen enempää?

HILMA. Eihän ne muuta. Sanovat vaan, että onhan sinulla jo talo

reilassa, niin että voisit sinne jo emännänkin ottaa.

SIPI. Olisit sanonut, että mitä teillä on sen kanssa tekemistä; se on

meidän oma asiamme.

HILMA. Niin, no. Arvaathan sen, Sipi kulta, ett'ei tuommoinen ole
minusta lystiä kuulla. Ja kun vielä äi'ä muutakin haastelevat.

SIPI (nousee ylös kävelemään). Luuletkos sitte, että minustakaan

tämä kaikki on niin lystiä kuulla?

HILMA (nousee myöskin). Tiedänhän minä… Ja sitähän minä

vaan, että jos sitte koetettaisiin pikemmin — jollakin lailla…

SIPI. Enkös minä sitte ole koettanut? Ja tiedäthän sitä paitsi itse,
minkälaisessa reilassa taloni on, kun en vielä ole saanut
mööbelejäkään, jotka Lappeenrannan työvankilasta tilasin. (Ottaa
piirongilta lakkinsa.)

HILMA. Kummallista todellakin, mitä ne niitäkin viivyttää.

SIPI. Niin, no. Joutavia siinä sitte syytä minun päälleni lykkää.

HILMA. Enhän sitä minä, Sipi kulta… Mitä sinä nyt noin pahaksi
panet?
Minähän vaan sanoin, mitä ne ihmiset haastavat.

SIPI. Anna heidän haastaa!

HILMA. Tottahan se onkin. Mitä meillä on heidän kanssaan

tekemistä?!

(Kuuluu kolme jysäystä seinään.)

HILMA. Hyi! Mikä se oli? (Menee ikkunan luo katsomaan.)

SIPI. Isäsi varmaan jotakin laittelee.

HILMA. Kah? Kuka siellä juoksi ikkunan aletse porstuaan?! Se oli

varmaan hän — Siiri.

(Eteisestä kuuluu ilveilevä, helakka nauru.)

HILMA. Sehän se on. Arvasinhan minä. (Juoksee peräovelle, josta

hänelle tulevat vastaan.)

SOHVI (joka vetää kädestä SIIRIÄ, ja heidän jälessään ANTTI.)

Neljäs kohtaus.
 HILMA, SIPI, SIIRI, SOHVI ja ANTTI sekä lopulla LIISU ja AAKU.

SOHVI. … tulee nyt vaan! Mitäs sitä joutavia!

SIIRI. Ei, ei. En minä, en minä…

HILMA. No, Siiri?! Mitä sinä?! Hyvää päivää!

(Tervehtivät toisiaan.)

SOHVI. Oltiin Antin kanssa kaivolla, kun tulivat. Vaan eivät sitte
tahtoneet tulla sisään, kun…

SIPI. Kunko minä olin täällä? Eikö niin?

SIIRI. No, ei ollenkaan. Minä nyt en suinkaan ole arkalasta

kotoisin. — Päivää, Sipi! Mitäs kuuluu — pitkistä ajoista? (Tervehtii
Sipiä näennäisen välinpitämättömästi, mutta kuitenkin ystävällisesti.)

SIPI. Eipä muuta, kuin että jos minä olen täällä liikaa, niin…

HILMA. Voi, ei, ei…

ANTTI ja SOHVI. Eihän nyt mitä.

SIIRI. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ihankos minä nyt säikäytin Sipin päästä

pyörälle, kun korennolla seinään jyskäytin? Ja tulikos siitä nyt
semmoinen väärinkäsitys, minun leikistäni? Ymmärrättehän
kuitenkin, että jos kuka täällä nyt on liikaa, niin se olen minä, eikä
kukaan muu. Ja sen tautta nyt vaan vähän olin kursailevinanikin.

HILMA. Eihän kukaan ole liikaa, ei kukaan.

SOHVI. Eihän mitä. Käykää nyt vaan istumaan.

 ANTTI. Niin. Tehkää nyt niin hyvin.

SIIRI. No, niin, tietysti. Kiitoksia! (Riisuu palttoonsa naulaan).

Tehdään sitte niin, kun isäntäväki on niin hyvä ja pyytää. (Istuutuu
tuolille etupuolelle pöytää).

SIPI (joka on tahtonut ripustaa Siirin palttoon, vaan saanut kiellon,

istuutuu pöydän toiselle puolelle, peremmälle)

HILMA (vetää kiikkutuolin paikoilleen ja istuutuu siihen).

SOHVI ja ANTTI (jäävät seisomaan samalle puolelle näyttämöä,

vaan peremmälle).

SIIRI. Minä näen kyllä, että olette kaikki hyvin ihmeissänne minun
äkkinäisestä tulostani — odotatte kuin kysymysmerkit vastausta
minulta. Ja minulla onkin, hyvä isäntäväki, teille pikkuisen asiata.

SOHVI ja ANTTI (katsahtavat toisiinsa). No, olkaa niin hyvä…

SIIRI. Ja sinulle, Hilma, tietysti myös.

HILMA. Sanohan nyt, niin saadaan kuulla. Ja jos voimme, niin…

SIIRI. Niinkuin tietysti jo olette kuulleet, niin olen eronnut

teatterista.

SOHVI. Hilmalta just'ikään vasta kuultiin.

HILMA. Ja minä sen kuulin vähän aikaa sitte suntiossa.

SIIRI. No, luonnollisesti. Ehkä sitte jo tiedätte, mistä syystäkin?

HILMA. Ei. Sitä en kuullut.

 SOHVI. Vaan arvatahan ollaan kyllä koetettu.

HILMA. Ja luultavasti ollaan arvattu oikein, koska näin kesken

kaikkea teatterin jätit.

SIIRI. Minä kyllä arvaan, mitä te olette koettaneet arvata, mutta se

ei pidä ryhtiä ollenkaan, e-heei!

HILMA. Että nyt todenperään olet naimisiin menossa?

SIIRI. Jos niin olisi, niin eipä minulla nyt olisikaan teille sitä asiaa,
joka minulla on.

HILMA. Kuinka niin?

SIIRI. Sillä minun eroamiseni syy on ihan toinen, paljoa

kevytmielisempi.

HILMA. Ooo?! Mitä sinä…?

SOHVI ja ANTTI (katsahtavat toisiinsa).

SIIRI. Ha-ha-ha-ha! — No, koska se näyttää teitä huvittavan, niin

minä kerron sen ihan suoraan.

HILMA. Ei, ei, ei me tahdota, jos se on jotakin —

SIIRI. Hirveätäkö? Ha-ha-ha-ha! Sen tautta juuri tahdon sen

salaisuuden teille ilmaista, että saisitte kuulla, kuinka hirveä se on.
Muuten voitte tekin vielä luulla Jumala tiesi mitä pahaa minusta.

HILMA ja SOHVI. Eihän me toki.

ANTTI. Kukapa sitä nyt luulisi?

 SIIRI. Elkää sanoko! Ihmiset ovat kyllä kärkkäät kaikkea
pahentamaan. — No. Sanalla sanoen: syy oli se, että muutamia
näyttelijättäriä, niiden joukossa minut, kutsui erään näytännön
jälkeen pari nuorta herraa kanssansa ravintolaan syömään illallista.
Mutta johtajamme, joka siinä suhteessa on hirveän ankara, suuttui
tuosta silmittömäksi kuultuaan sen seuraavana päivänä. Ja varsinkin
hän suuttui minuun, joka muka olin enimmin syypää tuohon
rikokseen. Silloin minä sanoin, että jos minä todellakin olen
teatterissa pahennukseksi, niin minä koreasti eroan. Hän oli kiivas ja
minä samoin, ja niin me tehtiin ero. Sen pituinen se.

HILMA. Mitäs pahaa tuossa nyt oli, että te illallista yhdessä söitte?

SOHVI. Eihän se mikään rikos ole.

SIIRI. Niinpä sitä luulisi puusta katsoen.

ANTTI. Ihan joutavasta tuommoinen rettelö.

HILMA. Erotettiinkos sitte ne muutkin, vai?

SIIRI. Eikä, ne saivat anteeksi.

HILMA. Miksi et sitte sinäkin…?

SIIRI. Anteeksiko pyytänyt? — "Ylpeys sen teki, sanoi pörriäinen,

kun päänsä seinään löi."

SOHVI ja ANTTI (nauravat). Voi, voi, kun se lystisti haastaa.

HILMA. Ja sinä voit olla noin, Siiri?! Se kyllä koskee sinuun,

vaikk'et tahdo sitä näyttää.
 SIPI (joka koko ajan ihastuneena on katsellut Siiriä). Mut se oli
oikein tehty. Niin minäkin olisin tehnyt.

HILMA. Vaan mitäs sinä nyt ai'ot tehdä, Siiri?

SOHVI. Mikäs hätä sitä nytkään on täällä Vallströmin rouvan luona

ollessa.

SIIRI. Sepäs se on, että täti Vallström nyt on minuun suuttunut,

että minä muka näin kevytmielisesti käyttäydyin. Pihalle hän ei
minua suorastaan aja, mutta jos ei hän minuun kohta lepy, niin oli
minun aikomukseni pyytää päästä tänne Hilman kanssa asumaan.
Ja se se juuri olikin minun asiani teille.

SOHVI. Ka, mikäs siin' on!

HILMA. Hyvin mielellään.

ANTTI. Sopiihan sitä tänne.

SIIRI. Vaan ei ilmaiseksi — millään muotoa. Minulla on vähän

säästöjä palkastani ja minä tahdon välttämättä maksaa olostani.

HILMA. Elä nyt…!

ANTTI. No, siitä nyt mitä.

SOHVI. Mitä sitä nyt edeltäpäin maksusta haastaa.

SIIRI. Ei, ei, ei. Ei muuten, — jos siitä tosi tulee. Mutta tämä on nyt
vaan kysymys siltä varalta, ett'en voi täti Vallströmin luo jäädä. Ja
kiitoksia nyt kaikissa tapauksissa ystävällisestä lupauksestanne.

LIISU ja AAKU (peräovelta). Äit', hoi! Äit', hoi!

 SOHVI. Mikä tuli?

LIISU. Mirre kun hyppäsi taikinapyttyyn.

AAKU. Taikinapyttyyn!! Loiskahti!

SOHVI. Hyvänen aika! (Rientää ulos.)

LIISU ja AAKU (juoksevat edeltä. Muut nauravat.)

ANTTI. Vaatehan siinä varmaan oli päällä peitteenä.

(Menee myöskin perälle.)

Viides kohtaus.

HILMA, SIIRI ja SIPI.

SIIRI. Niin, että sillä lailla se juttu oli.

HILMA. Voi kun minun oikein käy sinua sääli, Siiri.

SIIRI. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Minua se nyt ei säälitä vähääkään.

SIPI. Jos, tuota, se sopisi, — jos nimittäin meillä (vilkaisee

Hilmaan) jo olisi talo reilassa, niin olisihan sitte kyllä sinnekin…

SIIRI. Vai niin? Vai olisi Sipikin minut vielä ottanut luokseen?

SIPI (hymähtää mielissään). Onkos Siiri jo sitte unohtanut, että on

sitä sydämmen paikka minullakin.

SIIRI. Niinkö, että kun muu maailma hylkää, niin on tiedossa

ainakin yksi hyvä ystävä, joka sen hylätyn korjaa, niinkö, vai?
 SIPI. Vaikkapa niinkin.

SIIRI. Ha-ha-ha-ha! (Veikeästi:) Hyvä! Pidetään se muistissa.

HILMA. Onhan meillä täällä Siirille kyllä tilaa.

SIIRI. Tietysti, Hilma kulta, enemmän kuin kylliksi. Enhän minä toki
vielä ole niin suuruudella pilattu.

SIPI. Eiköhän nuo alituiset "hyvä"-huudot ja käsien paukutukset

siellä teatterissa ole kuitenkin vähän sinne päin vaikuttaneet?

SIIRI. Jospa niitä niin runsaasti olisi minun osakseni tullut, niin
ehkäpä olisivat vaikuttaneetkin. Vaan se seikka, että nyt olen täällä,
osottaa kai, ett'ei niin ole laita. Ja mistäs Sipi nyt on tuon käsityksen
minusta saanut?

SIPI. Onpa tuota jo ollut minulla vähän ennenkin.

SIIRI. Vai niin? Ja milloinkas se sitte on alkunsa saanut, jos saan

luvan kysyä?

SIPI. Milloinkako? No, mitä sitä niin kauas taaksepäin menee, kun
on myöhempiäkin esimerkkejä.

SIIRI. Voi, voi, kun en minä nyt ymmärrä niin yhtään mitään.
Selvemmin minulle pitää sanoa.

HILMA. Kuulehan, Siiri, nyt muistuu tästä mieleeni yksi asia.

SIIRI. Ja mikä se on?

HILMA. Sanohan: saitko sinä viime syksynä, muutamaa päivää

ennen lähtöäsi täältä, kutsun tulemaan erääsen nuorisoseuran
iltamaan? — Sipi, ole vaiti! Et saa sanoa mitään! Anna Siirin vastata
itse!

SIIRI. Annahan kun muistelen. — Sain, sain, todellakin. — Aa! Vai

sitä se Sipi tarkoittaakin?

SIPI. Siis vaan et suvainnut tulla meidän maalaisten iltamaan?

HILMA. Elähän sekoita, Sipi! Anna minun kysyä loppuun.

SIIRI. Enkö suvainnut? — En joutanut vaan, kun juuri olin

lähtöpuuhissa. — Mitä, Hilma, ai'oit..?

HILMA. Sitä, kuule, sanohan, kuka sinut silloin sinne kutsui, Siiri?
Muistatkos?

SIIRI. Mitäs teidän välillänne oikein on? (Iskee silmää Sipille.) Sipi,
tietysti.

HILMA. Ahas! Kas niin! Siinä se on.

SIPI. Ei. Nyt ei Siiri suvaitse haastaa totta.

SIIRI. Ei väinkään. Muistanhan minä: se oli lukkarin Arvi.

SIPI. No? Rauhoituitkos, Hilma, nyt?

HILMA. Kyllä, kyllä (Menee hiilustaa kohentamaan.)

SIIRI (merkitsevästi Sipille.) Mutta se oli myöskin yksi syy, miksi en

iltamaan tullut. — Vaan te luulitte, että se oli ylpeyttä, niinkö?

SIPI. Täytyy kai uskoa, ett'ei ollut.

 SIIRI. Ei pikkuistakaan. Mutta jos niin luulette, niin olen nyt valmis
tulemaan heti ensimmäiseen iltamaan.

SIPI. Terve tultua vaan. Pannaan semmoinen sitte toimeen

kohtakin.

SIIRI. Ja oikein mielelläni tanssin taas noita vanhoja piiritanssia,

niihin kun on niin lystit sanat. Mitenkäs ne onkaan? Tanssitaanpas
vaikka paikalla. (Tarttuu Hilmaa ja Sipiä kädestä, vetää heitä pyörien
perässään ja rallattaa:)

"Ah, voi, voi, kun en miestä saa, sanoi

Anttilan Amaliia…"

SIPI (jatkaa:)

"Miksis ompelit hameesi helmaan rimssuja kamaliia?"

SIIRI. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha! (Päästää Hilman käden irti ja jää

vielä kotvan pitämään Sipiä kädestä.)

SOHVI (tulee laulun aikaan sisään).

Kuudes kohtaus.

HILMA, SIPI, SIIRI ja SOHVI.

SIIRI. Voi, voi, mitäs me nyt hullutellaankin?!

SOHVI. Täällähän on ilot ylimmillään. Ja paikalla on lysti, kun Siiri

tuli.
 SIIRI. Elkää panko pahaksi, hyvä emäntä. Mutta nämä kun
sanoivat, että minä olen ylpeäksi käynyt, niin minä tahdoin heti
näyttää, ett'ei se ole totta.

SOHVI. Eihän nyt mitä… Siiri kun vielä, näen mä, osaa täkäläisiä
rinkilaulujakin.

SIIRI. Vieläkös niitä täällä nytkin lauletaan, Hilma?

HILMA. Vielä, välistä.

SIPI. Tietysti, — lauletaan kyllä.

SIIRI. Niistä muistui mieleeni ne ajat, kun tuo Sipi vielä oli täällä
kauppapalvelijana ja kun hän minua hakkaili ja aina, minut rinkiin
ottaessaan, lauloi tuon värssyn, että:

"Meinasin, meinasin, meinasin olla, meinasin olla yksin…"

SIPI. (jatkaa:)

"Siniset silmät, punaiset posket sai minut vietellyksi."

Niinkö?

SIIRI. Miten lienee ollut. — Ja nyt siitä on tullut tuommoinen

komersserooti. Ha-ha-ha-ha!

HILMA (johon tämä ilo on vaikuttanut lannistavasti, menee Sipin

luo ja haastaa hänelle jotakin hiljaa).

SIIRI (huomattuaan sen, Sohville). No, pilasiko Mirri taikinan, vai?

SOHVI. Eikä mitä. Käpälänsä vaan vähän tahrasi.