"The two countesses" by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach is a novel written in the late 19th century. It juxtaposes two aristocratic women—impulsive, witty Muschi and reflective, principled Paula—each facing courtship, convention, and the pull between love and social ambition within the Austro-Hungarian nobility. Expect lively social comedy, sharp character sketches, and probing questions about integrity, vanity, and how marriages are made. The beginning of the novel alternates between Countess Muschi’s breezy letters and Countess Paula’s earnest memoirs. Muschi, bored at Sebenberg, sizes up a visiting Swabian suitor, spars with his pedantry, stages pranks and hunts, then deftly redirects his proposal to her demure friend Clara Aarheim—securing their engagement while revealing her own restless standards. In contrast, Paula recalls a sheltered upbringing, a crisis of conscience that ended her enthusiasm for hunting, and a deepening intellectual life (sparked by Don Quixote) as her family steers her toward the proud Count Taxen. At soirées she encounters the idealistic, unlucky Baron Schwarzburg, whose integrity captivates her, even as gossip swirls and her parents press the advantageous match with Taxen. The opening closes with Paula refusing to feign affection for the approved suitor and bracing for a family confrontation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Evolution made plain by John Mason" is a concise popular science pamphlet written in the early 20th century. It is a scientific publication that introduces the theory of evolution in plain language, explaining how natural selection and other natural laws account for the development of all life, including humans. The book defines what evolution is and is not, separates it from common misconceptions, and surveys geological time and the fossil record to show a progression from simple to complex forms. It marshals anatomical and embryological evidence (homologies, vestigial organs, and stages of development), discusses “connecting links,” and compares humans and apes alongside early human fossils. It explains natural selection, variation, artificial selection, and the idea of mutations, then extends these ideas to social thought, urging free inquiry and tolerance while criticizing biblical literalism and popular objections. In its final sections it applies heredity and environment to human progress, argues for the primacy of the common good, and controversially advocates eugenic measures, calling for improved environments and responsible reproduction as the path to future advancement. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"On art and artists" by Max Simon Nordau is a collection of art criticism essays written in the early 20th century. The work contends that art has an essential social mission, rejecting “art for art’s sake,” and argues that modern, democratic societies need art that dignifies labor and expands the inner life stunted by specialization. It combines theory with incisive case studies—from medieval French painters to modern sculptors and realists—to show how art has served religion, power, and, increasingly, the public, while critiquing fashionable movements that mistake novelty for substance. The opening of this work lays out a psychological and historical case against pure aestheticism: early art (from cave drawings to children’s sketches) may spring from private impulse, but as civilization develops, artists address audiences, patrons, and social needs. The author surveys how ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art served gods, rulers, and institutions; how modern criticism and public exhibitions shifted authority to critics and the crowd; and why, in an industrial age of extreme specialization, art should restore wholeness and self-respect—especially by ennobling work rather than wallowing in grim realism. He proposes “socialistic art” that arouses pity for the disinherited and reverence for honest labor, exemplified through vivid readings of Constantin Meunier’s miners, smiths, and reapers (while noting a few missteps), and links this to Millet’s moral gravity. A subsequent essay dissects style as the tension between construction (utility) and decoration (luxury), praising organic, meaning-rich ornament and critiquing mindless imitation and derivative “Secessionist” fashion. The opening then revisits medieval French masters, challenging the myth that French art merely copied Flemish or Italian models, highlighting naturalism in manuscript-derived painting, the greatness of Fouquet and the Master of Moulins, and the subtle, proto-revolutionary realism latent in sacred scenes, before turning to a century survey that begins to reassess eighteenth-century painters against the politics of taste. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Paras ystävätär : Avioliittoromaani" by Martti Wuori is a marriage novel written in the early 20th century. It portrays an intense friendship between the wealthy school-leaver Toini Karppi and her younger schoolmate Hillevi, whose beauty and precocious poise draw admiring eyes and stir rivalries. As the ambitious lawyer Herbert Hursti courts Toini, a subtle triangle forms, testing loyalty, class sensibilities, and the boundaries of female friendship on the brink of marriage. The opening follows a school recess where Toini openly dotes on Hillevi and invites her to lavish birthday dances at the Karppi home, provoking classmates’ envy. At the ball, Hillevi’s striking looks and dancing captivate the room—and catch Herbert’s eye—while his ongoing attentions to Toini advance toward an unspoken understanding. A summer in Baden-Baden cements the engagement, after which Hillevi’s hurt surfaces briefly before she reconciles and frequents the couple’s company, masking deeper feelings with tact and charm. Preparations intensify as the groom shifts into diplomatic service and the family readies a grand church wedding, with the narrative poised at the decorated altar as the ceremony approaches. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Torpan tyttö : Kaksinäytöksinen näytelmä by Kaarlo Luoto" is a stage play written in the early 20th century. The drama centers on a crofter’s daughter whose integrity collides with class prejudice and collaboration with the Russian authorities, turning a hopeful betrothal into a grave moral test. Hilma, the diligent daughter of torppari Mäkelä and Katri, is courted by Ville, heir to the wealthy Heinämäki farm. Though Heinämäki first insults her and tries to bully the family—going so far as to buy their tenancy to evict them—public esteem for Hilma (a prize from the folk college and an offer to teach handicrafts) softens him, and the betrothal is set. At the celebration, however, it emerges that Heinämäki and Ville have sold a prime strip of shoreline to Russians for fortification. Hilma condemns the sale as a betrayal of the nation, breaks the engagement, and refuses to support cowardice for gain. Desperate, Ville shoots himself; Heinämäki collapses into madness, raving about medals and land, and must be restrained. The community affirms Hilma’s courage, framing the tragedy as the price of moral compromise rather than the fault of the “torpan girl.” (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Many Marriages by Sherwood Anderson is a novel written in the early 20th century. It follows John Webster, a Midwestern washing-machine manufacturer whose sudden inner awakening disrupts his settled marriage and draws him toward his secretary, Natalie Swartz. Through sensuous imagery and introspective monologue, the book probes love, desire, conscience, and the constraints of modern respectability as Webster questions his roles as husband, father, and businessman. The opening of the novel frames an “Explanation” to magazine readers and a foreword meditating on the terror of direct actions in love, then plunges into Webster’s day of upheaval. At work and in town, he experiences a torrent of heightened perceptions and symbols—the body-as-house, black laborers singing, a green stone—while testing his world against these revelations. He studies his wife Mary’s heaviness, his daughter Jane’s unread face, and the quiet dignity of their servant Katherine; he wanders parks and streets, considers escaping to Chicago for anonymous indulgence, then returns to find Natalie freshly bathed and dressed, wordlessly affirming their bond as he kneels with his head in her lap. Town employees notice; the bookkeeper frets and gossips, while Webster spends evenings with Natalie, imagines leaving his business and family, walks into the countryside speaking of love and openness, and, back at home, lies awake sensing the community’s judgment and the stark exposure of private lives—like rooms revealed after a fire. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Round the world in any number of days" by Maurice Baring is a travelogue written in the early 20th century. With urbane wit and a light, essayistic touch, it follows a long sea voyage from England through the Mediterranean and Suez to Ceylon, Australia, and New Zealand, blending portside sketches, shipboard vignettes, and literary reflections. Expect cultural commentary, humorous asides, and keen-eyed descriptions rather than practical guidance or strict itinerary. The opening of this travelogue sets sail from strike-tangled Tilbury on an under-staffed liner, moves past a nostalgic glimpse of Plymouth, and offers brisk, vivid stops—Gibraltar in a blink, Naples in blazing color and song—before coaling at Port Said amid conjurors and cookie-cutter fortune-tellers. Crossing the Red Sea’s stifling heat (with a stoker’s tragic leap), the narrator reads and reminisces—Dumas, Hugo, Trollope—then drifts into monsoon talk, ship-music, and brisk opinions about Australian sensitivities and travel criticism, even imagining an “Australian” Chesterton. Ceylon appears in rickshaws, fans, and incomparable mangoes; later come a mock-dramatic authorial skit at sea, a ghost-story unmasked as a wayward figurehead, and a near-mishap leaving Fremantle. Adelaide prompts sharp notes on the hard lives and poor pay of merchant seamen; Melbourne flashes by; Sydney proves lively, its booksellers deft, and Andrew Lang is warmly remembered before transfer to a new ship bound for New Zealand. On board, poker, “Monte Cristo,” card-fortune jokes, school politics, and musings on modern criticism fill the days. Arrival in Wellington brings the famed wind anecdote, knife-edged hills, and prosperous streets; inland near Palmerston, the landscape recalls Siberia, children ride like centaurs, and rugby’s amateur passion is contrasted with England’s professionalism. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Blonde duinen by Jac. P. Thijsse is an illustrated popular natural history book written in the early 20th century. It offers guided rambles through the Dutch coastal dunes, using vivid observation and approachable explanations to reveal how plants, animals, and landscapes fit together. Expect seasonal field sketches that blend storytelling with fieldcraft, encouraging readers—especially the young—to notice, collect, and care about the living world. The opening of the work sets out a friendly preface: these “nature albums” are meant to put good color plates and real outdoor experience within easy reach, so that young people learn nature by seeing. It quickly shifts into lively dune vignettes: a teacher’s cheerful “rabbit hunt” with pupils for skulls becomes a lesson in snares, scavengers, and rabbit life (burrows, frosty signs, rampant breeding, evening grazing). A birch-dale chapter follows with bark and fungus, then moths and larvae as masters of disguise (buff-tip, peppered moth, emerald), plus birds such as nightingale, song thrush, willow warbler, and a few deft plant notes (violets’ self-fertilizing flowers, garlic mustard with orange-tip). A June evening piece captures flowers closing and opening, moth- and hawk-moth pollination, and the arrival of bats, toads, hedgehogs, shrews, nightjars, grasshopper warblers, and stone-curlews. A hot June afternoon rounds it out with hedgerow and dune blooms, June beetles in roses, leafcutter bees fashioning brood cells, climbing bryony, showy ragwort and mullein feeders, and small passerines like tree pipit and whinchat—set against the brood-parasitic cuckoo. Overall, these first chapters read as gently didactic rambles that model how to notice, name, and connect dune life. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Herinneringen by Selma Lagerlöf is a collection of autobiographical reminiscences written in the early 20th century. It traces the author’s path from a prophetic birth at the family estate Mårbacka through illness, avid reading, first encounters with theater, education, and the slow, determined making of a writer. Along the way she reflects on the genesis of her major works and on travels—including to Jerusalem—that shaped her themes and resolve. The focus is intimate and reflective, centered on how a life of stories becomes a life in literature. The opening of this memoir begins with the night of the author’s birth, when Aunt Wennervik’s card reading predicts frail health, much travel, lifelong work, and a life with books. Childhood illness keeps her indoors, where a lurid adventure novel awakens her desire to write; a winter in Stockholm restores her strength and introduces the stage, leading to home theatricals and dreams of playwriting, followed by the heady discovery of writing her first lines of verse. As a young woman she endures anxious days awaiting admission to the teachers’ seminary and succeeds, convinced she must gain knowledge to earn her living and to write well; later, in Jerusalem, a sand-divining seer assures her the book she plans about Swedish settlers there will come to fruition. A companion piece, “A Tale of a Tale,” shows how the legends of Wermland and the atmosphere of Mårbacka grew—after false starts and a prize-winning excerpt—into the episodic, romantic form of Gösta Berling’s saga, aided by the patronage that gave her a year to finish. The section closes by shifting back to Jerusalem with a parable-like vignette about a dream interpreter slighted during a royal visit and a Western traveler’s dream of Christ ascending the minaret of El Azhar, where the excerpt breaks off. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

From sawdust to Windsor Castle by Whimsical Walker is a memoir written in the early 20th century. It charts the life of a British clown and circus–pantomime performer from a harsh childhood and fairground apprenticeships through international circus circuits to big‑top fame and command performances. Expect bustling backstage anecdotes, animal‑training exploits, and a front‑row view of popular entertainment from the circus ring to Drury Lane. The opening of this memoir follows Walker from a stepmother’s beatings in Hull to running away at nine and hustling for work in fairs and booths—tumbling, touting for a photographer, and posing as a “living head.” He drifts through early pantomime at Whitby and a first taste of London before real training under circus proprietor Pablo Fanque, who makes him a clown and drills him in horses, vaulting, and discipline. A string of itinerant engagements brings pratfalls and peril—stage collapses, a botched double somersault, a slack‑rope scare, a lion‑tamer’s death, and endless practical jokes—alongside abortive stabs at “serious” acting at Astley’s and in mumming booths. We see provincial circuits, rough lodging‑house comedy, and brushes with notoriety, from meeting the executioner Marwood to a farcical day in court. He then sails to America, survives a brutal storm and a spilled jar of whisky, plays New York during the blowing up of Hell Gate, and meets culture clashes that make clowning risky, before trekking by caravan across the prairies with Native guides. After side trips to Java and Australia and witnessing a New York “spiritualist” swindle, he joins Barnum and Bailey, bonds with a newborn elephant, and is dispatched under sealed orders to secure the famed “Jumbo.” This opening section closes with the uproar over Jumbo’s sale, legal wrangles, a canny publicity delay, and the eventual shipment and celebrated American arrival of the beloved beast. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Ingrid by Selma Lagerlöf is a novel written in the late 19th century. Set in Sweden, it follows Gunnar Hede, a gifted violinist and heir desperate to save the Monnikshut estate, and Ingrid, a gentle orphan whose life intersects with his. Mixing folk-legend atmosphere with romance and moral struggle, it explores art, duty, love, and the pull of home. The opening follows Gunnar Hede in Uppsala as a blunt friend warns him that his family estate is failing and his violin obsession has stalled his studies. After a street performance reveals his power to move crowds, Gunnar resolves to earn money, later taking to the road as a peddler; a disastrous winter drive with hundreds of goats and a broken engagement unhinge him, and he becomes the half-mad wanderer people call “Geitebok.” The scene shifts to Roglanda, where the dreamy, put-upon Ingrid, adopted by a poor pastor’s family, falls gravely ill, lapses into a trance, and is buried as if dead. On a blazing Sunday, the wandering Hede avoids the church, plays his violin by a fresh grave, and—troubled by a sound—unscrews the coffin, reviving Ingrid. Terrified of being seen in her shroud, she persuades him to hide her in his pack and carry her to the parsonage, arriving as the household prepares for her funeral. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Delle speranze d'Italia" by conte Cesare Balbo is a political essay published in 1843. Writing during Italy's struggle for unification, Balbo examines how Italian states might achieve independence from Austrian rule. He critiques the neo-Guelph program of Vincenzo Gioberti, proposing instead that the House of Savoy lead a confederation of Italian states. The work addresses military strategy, constitutional reform, and the crucial question of timing for national liberation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

The sociable ghost : Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the…. by Olive Harper is a satirical supernatural novel written in the early 20th century. Set in and beneath New York’s Trinity Churchyard, it follows a young newspaper man and a loquacious “Sociable Ghost” through a night of ghostly revels—banquets, dances, and conventions—used to lampoon high society, publishers, and pious pretenses. The tone is comic and irreverent, mixing urban history with witty afterlife etiquette and class commentary. The opening of the novel finds a heartbroken reporter brooding in Trinity churchyard, where the graves stir and a sardonic ghost borrows his pipe and whiskey, then guides him through a cemetery tour laced with jokes about epitaphs, cherub carvings, “passports” for the dead, and the folly of memorial sentiment. The ghost explains this is the one night ghosts may freely walk, previews an underground convention and ball, mocks mediums, and gossips about the famous (including a vignette of John Jacob Astor’s spirit happily working an old baling press). Led through the Lawrence tomb into a vast, flower-lit hall curated by a grand social impresario, the reporter witnesses a chaotic card-room episode where a hulking professional gambler unwillingly teaches six lady ghosts poker with beans, and then hears a “mended ghost” recount the brutal mishandling of remains during a church vault relocation. The section closes as a sumptuous banquet begins, the reporter is welcomed to a prime seat, and a spirited quarrel over manners—knives, saucers, and “civilization”—sets the satirical tone for what follows. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"L''Afrique centrale française : Récit du voyage de la mission" by Auguste Chevalier et al. is a scientific travel account and expedition report written in the early 20th century. It chronicles the French Chari–Lake Chad mission through Central Africa, blending route narratives with studies in botany, geology, ethnography, and colonial economics. The focus is on mapping regions between the Congo, Oubangui, and Lake Chad, establishing experimental gardens, and assessing resources such as rubber, copal, and food crops within the context of French colonial administration. The opening of this account explains how the mission was conceived, funded, and staffed, outlining official backing, scientific aims, and the team’s roles. It follows the party from France to Brazzaville via the Congo railway, contrasts the disrepair of Brazzaville with the orderly Belgian Léopoldville, and details early botanical work that identifies the so‑called “grass-root rubber” from Landolphia species. The narrative then shifts to the river journey up the Congo and Oubangui toward Bangui, with close observation of forests, islands, copal and oil palms, village agriculture, and abandoned settlements linked to recent unrest, while noting evolving local customs and the spread of introduced crops. It closes in this excerpt with vivid travel notes and a clear critique of abuses by concession agents and poorly supervised troops as the boat reaches Bondjo-country villages like Isasa. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Winnetou: Het opperhoofd der Apachen" by Karl May is a novel published in 1893. A German immigrant called Old Shatterhand joins a surveying expedition in the American West, where he encounters the Apache chief Intshu tshuna and his son Winnetou. Initial hostilities escalate into warfare, capture, and a fight to the death. Through courage and honor, bitter enemies transform into blood brothers. But tragedy strikes when ruthless outlaws attack Winnetou's family, setting the stage for a vengeful pursuit across the prairie. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Celtic art in Pagan and Christian times" by J. Romilly Allen is a scholarly archaeological and art-historical study written in the early 20th century. It investigates the origins, development, and motifs of Celtic art in Britain and Ireland across two broad phases—pagan and Christian—set against Continental cultures such as Hallstatt and La Tène. Drawing on excavations, museum collections, and comparative ornament, the work explains how patterns like spirals, chevrons, and knotwork evolved and appeared on metalwork, pottery, sculpture, and, by analogy, illuminated manuscripts. The opening of the study states its aim to synthesize current evidence on Celtic art’s origins and growth, crediting recent discoveries (Aylesford, Glastonbury, Hunsbury; Hallstatt and La Tène; Marne cemeteries) for reshaping the timeline and sources of influence. It sketches the Celts in Classical literature and art, then pivots to archaeology to define the Hallstatt (earlier) and La Tène (later) Iron Age cultures, their weapons, fibulae, shields, helmets, and the role of Greek trade in shaping Gaulish styles; it also stresses the Celts’ habit of imitating foreign coinage. The narrative then traces how Goidelic Celts entered Bronze Age Britain, encountering Neolithic Iberian-like populations, and distinguishes Goidels and Brythons linguistically (Q vs P) and culturally (Bronze vs Early Iron Age), before proposing broad Bronze Age chronologies. At the start of the art discussion, the book catalogs the primary evidence—barrows, settlements, hoards, stray finds, and rock carvings—and shows how Bronze Age burial customs and pottery types (cinerary urns, food-vessels, drinking-cups, incense-cups) are decorated chiefly with chevron-based geometric schemes executed by impressing cords, tools, and stamps. It explains, with clear geometric breakdowns, how triangles, lozenges, saltires, and hexagon effects derive from the chevron, and contrasts these with spiral motifs found on carved stones (notably at Newgrange) rather than on British bronzes. The section closes by linking those spirals to Scandinavian Bronze Age metalwork, underscoring a web of Continental connections. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Songs and rhymes of a lead miner" by Thomas Grierson Gracie is a collection of poems and songs written in the early 20th century. The volume evokes the work, landscape, and community life of Wanlockhead and the Lowther Hills, told in Scots dialect and plainspoken English. It mingles nature sketches, mining-life vignettes, village customs, and music-making with elegies and patriotic verses shaped by the Great War. Expect intimate local color, moral reflections, and occasional humor from a miner-musician’s point of view. The opening of the collection begins with a candid preface in which the author recounts a hard childhood in Wanlockhead, years as a lead and coal miner, his love of the fiddle, and his turn to rhyming during wartime, stressing that he writes for ordinary folk and thanking local editors and friends. It then moves through descriptive pieces: moonlit winter vistas over the Lowthers that prompt a prayer for peace, comic and lively accounts of fishing trips and a grouse meet, a breathless otter hunt, a graveside procession, and lyrical walks along Mennock Burn and the Heights of Glendyne. Village life and memory follow—an old-time wedding, affection for a family wall clock amid modern inventions, a satire of a sour “Curmudgeon,” praise of local rivers and a memorial seat—before a series of in memoriam poems for townsfolk and soldiers, tributes to volunteers, and a tender lament for a pit pony. The Songs section mixes nostalgia and courtship with mining humor (“Level No. 6,” an emergency pump), recruiting and morale numbers, and local portraits, while the Miscellaneous pieces turn to social critique (“Scunner’t”), a toast to an absent friend, and a closing, unfinished portrait of the miner’s steadfastness. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Sibylla : or, The revival of prophecy by C. A. Mace" is a speculative essay written in the early 20th century. It proposes that “prophecy” can be revived as disciplined scientific forecasting, arguing that modern science and psychology will increasingly predict—and deliberately shape—the future of society, industry, education, politics, and even human nature. Mace surveys recent “prophetic” thinking, contrasts gadget-focused futurism with biologically minded forecasts, and then sketches a coming revolution: the scientific management of mind and behavior. Using examples from industrial psychology, he shows how incentives, environment, and subtle social levers can steer work, policy, and public opinion, predicting propaganda refined into a precise art, humor as a political weapon, and war fought mainly by psychological means. He foresees education reorganized around natural rhythms and lifelong study, a tight weave of factory–school–clinic guidance, and universities challenged by mass broadcasting. He extends this control to eugenics and selection, speculates on altered senses, memory, and specialized languages, and traces moral trends toward reduced cruelty and self-conscious, cooler emotions. Society, he suggests, will stratify into a small, tested technocratic elite and a contented majority, with sport fading as work and play merge under scientific planning. He closes by questioning whether such mastery brings happiness or virtue, noting that desire expands as achievement does, leaving fulfillment perpetually just out of reach. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Terveeks'' — Buddha!" by Sulo-Weikko Pekkola is a travelogue written in the early 20th century. It follows a Finnish traveler moving from the Middle East into British India and across Southeast Asia toward Australia, blending shipboard episodes, rail journeys, and street-level sketches of colonial cities. Told in an anecdotal, often humorous and sometimes sharply opinionated voice, it focuses on everyday encounters, language barriers, and the social hierarchies of empire. The opening of the narrative finds the author abandoning an overland entry to India in favor of a British India Steam Navigation ship from Basra, sharing a cabin with Hindu officers, watching deck passengers cook amid monsoon swells, and arriving via Karachi to Bombay. First impressions emphasize how European parts of Indian port cities appear, contrasted with crowded stations, third-class train travel, improvised smoking customs, and a grim episode of suspected sabotage leading to a wreck. He comments on language gaps despite imperial English, offers blunt (often biased) notes on local habits like crouching by the tracks and the status of sacred animals, and describes a hawk taking a street chicken. Reaching Singapore, he depicts a cosmopolitan, Chinese-dominated port with fine roads, open drains, foul river, trolley-like buses, and visits to rubber estates and the botanic garden; he relies on a newspaper editor rather than a consul for access. Street vignettes include anti-English sentiment, getting lost, gold-teeth smiles, noisy lodgings with piano and violin, bath tubs as water boxes, a nearby mosque and guarded harem, and an episode with a neighbor’s wheezing accordion. The section closes with visa bureaucracy for Australia resolved by an English officer upstairs and the sight of a lively, music-led Chinese funeral procession. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Palvelusväkeä : Yksinäytöksinen huvinäytelmä by Roderich Benedix" is a one-act comedic play, most akin to a light social farce, likely written in the late 19th century. Set entirely in a manor house kitchen, it explores the lives of servants—flirtations, jealousy, gossip, and superstition—leading to a sudden stroke of luck that reshapes their futures. In the kitchen bustle, maid Hanna and stablehand Pekka are engaged, but the bookkeeper Aukusti flirts with Hanna, provoking the spiteful jealousy of the lady’s maid Anna. Slander travels upstairs: Pekka is summarily dismissed (under the pretext of a lame horse), and Hanna is fired for supposed impropriety. Ristiina the cook, guided by a vivid dream, splits a raffle ticket with Hanna; soon Reetta brings news that their ticket has won a major prize. Fortune reverses the injustice: Pekka and Hanna can now marry and start a life of their own, while the steady coachman Juronen—long prudent and patient—proposes to Ristiina, and they plan to open a well-run eatery. Amid banter and quick turns, camaraderie and chance triumph over malice and class-bound pettiness. (This is an automatically generated summary.)