Seven Brothers
Aleksis Kivi
 At first, the brothers are not a particularly peaceful lot and end up quarreling with the local constable, jury, vicar, churchwarden, and teachers—not to mention their neighbours in Toukola village. No wonder young girls' mothers do not regard them as good suitors. When they are required to learn to read before they can accept church confirmation and therefore official adulthood—and marry—they escape. Eventually they end up moving to distant Impivaara in the middle of relative wilderness, but their first efforts are shoddy—one Christmas Eve they end up burning down their new house. Next spring they try again and manage to kill a hostile herd of bulls. Ten years of clearing forest for fields, hard work and hard drinking—and Simeoni’s delirium tremens—eventually make them change their ways. They learn to read on their own and eventually return to Jukola. In the end most of them become pillars of the community and family men. Still, the tone of the tale is not particularly moralistic.