Chapter II: Part 2

Far back across the field was a wire pen which caught Roald’s eye. At first he thought that he was looking at a chicken house. But as he walked closer he saw that foxes and not chickens lived in the pen. What cunning foxes they were! Baby foxes lay sleeping in the sun. Other foxes ran about the pen, jumping up on the box houses and off as they pleased. The foxes had long black fur. Down the back of each fox was a stripe of fur tipped with white. Such animals are called silver foxes because of the white tips on the black fur.

At first Roald felt sorry for the baby foxes. He imagined that they were unhappy and longing to be free to run away into the woods. But his father said, “These foxes have never lived anywhere except in this pen. They are well fed, and, no doubt, are very contented in the pen.”

Farmers in this northland often raise foxes for sale. The silver foxes are very valuable. People pay large prices for fox furs and they like the pretty silver tips on them. Ships that sail from Norway to other countries carry many fox pelts to those other lands.

But Roald soon forgot the foxes as he watched some boys busily working in another field. Rows of poles were sticking in the ground in that field and bunches of grain hung on each pole. The boys were pulling up the poles, turning them around, and sticking them back into the ground.

Roald watched them for some time. From one of the boys he learned that grain in that part of Norway is usually dried on poles. By the time the oats, barley, and rye are ripe enough to cut summer is nearly over. The wet fall weather begins. The grain must be dried as quickly as possible. Stacking it in shocks on the ground would not do, for the rainy weather would rot it. The farmers in Norway fasten their grain on short poles to hold it up off the wet ground.

The grain on one side of the poles which Roald saw had received more sunshine than the grain on the other side of the poles. That is why the boys were in the field turning the poles. They wanted all the grain on the poles to dry quickly.

Roald was surprised to see other boys cutting small shrubs and branches of trees and hanging them on fence posts to dry. What would they ever do with those dry leaves? But his father told him that if he stayed on the farm during the winter he would see the goats eating the dried leaves and liking them too. And most farmers in Norway keep goats as well as cows, horses, and pigs.

Roald and his father and his mother and sister then rode on a bus to the next town. They did not travel very fast, for the bus driver is also the mailman. He stopped at each farmhouse along the road for which he had mail. Sometimes he dropped the mail in a mail box by the side of the road, but often girls or boys were waiting at the farm gate to take the mail. Often the driver gave a sack full of mail to a farmer or a man who runs a small store in a village. That man delivers mail to the families who live farther back off the main road.

At one place the man who was to take a sack of mail was not outside his house to meet the bus. The driver and all the passengers on the bus were impatient. The driver honked the horn of his car, but still the farmer did not come. Then the bus driver went over to a post by the gate and pushed a button. He told Roald that by pushing that button he rang an electric bell at the farmhouse. So Roald was not surprised to see the postman come running after the bell had been rung.

Roald was ready to take the train back to Oslo after a week in the country, but he talked about the farms all the rest of the summer.

In the High Pastures

“Come, children dear,
For night draws near,
Come, children.”

During the summer months you might hear a Norwegian girl, high up on a mountain, calling her cows with such a rhyme. She would, no doubt, call each cow by name, just as the girl does in the old rhyme.

“Come, children all,
That hear my call,
Brynhilda fair,
With nut-brown hair!
Come, little Rose,
Ere day shall close;

And Birchen Bough,
My own dear cow;
And Morning Pride,
And Sunny Side;—
Come, children dear,
For night draws near,
Come, children.”

Dotted here and there far up in the mountains stand lonely little huts. For months during the year, the roofs of those huts are covered with snow and no smoke comes from the chimneys. But as soon as the winter snows are gone and the tender green grass covers the mountain slopes, the girls take the cattle to the mountains to feed on the fresh grass. Those girls will live in the lonely huts until the snows of the next winter begin to fall on the mountains. In Norway the people call a farmer’s mountain pasture his saeter (say ter).

Sometime in June many girls start on the journey to a saeter. The girls look forward to that day for weeks even though they will be very lonely up in the mountains. Anne and Hulda are sisters who go to a saeter each summer. Anne is only fourteen years of age and Hulda is seventeen. Sigrid, who is about the same age as Hulda, and Martha, who is much older, live on a farm not far from the farm where Anne and Hulda live. Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha take their cows to the same saeter. So the four girls live together for three months each summer.

One summer, Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha started for the saeter on June 25. They live in a part of Norway that is far from a fjord or a railroad, so they had to travel on foot. They did not go alone, for there was too much to take to the saeter. Their older brothers went with them. The girls dressed in heavy brown khaki suits and high-topped shoes, walked ahead with the cows, the sheep, and the goats. The boys came behind them with horses loaded with food, churns, milk cans, bedding, and cooking vessels. At first they traveled along a main road and walking was easy. Only a few miles from their homes, they stopped for a week at a house near the road. The cows ate the grass off the mountain slopes near the house, and the boys planted potatoes on a patch on the mountainside which was level enough that crops would not be washed away.

At the end of the week they again loaded the horses and started on the rest of their journey. To reach the high pastures, they must walk up a narrow zigzag road. The small dun-colored horses climb the paths carrying the bundles. What a lot of turns the road has! One mountain path has twenty-seven turns. Of course, the many turns make a longer road than a straight one would be, but the girls are glad for the zigzags. They make the road less steep and they follow the smoother paths.

By the end of the day, the cattle reached their green pastures. And the girls opened the hut which was to be their home for almost three months. The hut was made of rough timber. It had a sod roof on which grew grass and small shrubs.

The boys helped the girls clean the hut which had been closed for so many months. They unloaded the goods which the horses had carried up the mountain and put everything in place. In one corner of the one big room, they put the churn, the milk cans, and the tools. In another corner was a fireplace. On it they hung iron kettles on which the girls would cook their food and boil the milk to make cheese. On a table at one side of the room they put the crocks for the milk and on a shelf above the table, they placed the dishes. At one end of the room on wooden beds, they put the mattresses of straw and warm covers which look like small feather beds.

The next morning the boys set out down the mountain again. They must return to help gather the grain and cut the grass on the farm. The girls are left alone with the cattle.

All four of the girls got up early each morning. They milked the cows and the goats. After breakfast of cheese and bread and butter and milk, Anne and Sigrid each morning took the cattle to the pasture. While the cattle wandered about on the mountain eating the fresh grass, the girls lay in the sun or searched for wild berries—blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Each evening Anne and Sigrid called the cattle. They knew each one by name, and perhaps some of their cows were named Rose, Birchen Bough, and Morning Pride like the cows in the old rhyme. They drove the herds back to the barns near the hut and went home for supper.

Hulda and Martha had supper ready. They had smoked herring, goat’s cheese (goat’s cheese is dark brown in color and tastes sweet), potatoes, bread, butter, milk, and fresh berries. Hulda and Martha were busy all day. They took care of the milk, cleaned the house, and walked two miles to the main road to meet the postman who passes in the afternoon each day. One day each week they got the milk ready for the man who came to take it to factories where butter and cheese are made.

The girls were glad when Saturday nights came. Then some of their relatives and friends came out to see them. Girls from other saeters came too if they were not too far away. On these nights sometimes the girls and boys sang songs and danced on the grass.

Ole, Kristian, and Sofie are other Norwegian girls who take cows to the high pastures. They live on a farm near a fjord. They take their cattle part way up to the saeter on a boat. The girls, dressed in dark dresses and heavy shoes, carrying big knapsacks on their backs, travel on the same boat with the cows. When they leave the boat, they drive the cows a few miles up the mountain. They live much as Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha live on their saeter. These girls can go to the village by boat to buy groceries.

Automobile roads have been built in some parts of the high mountains. Tourists climb the high mountains in automobiles. Round and round they climb, sometimes on a road that is like a shelf sticking out from the rocky wall. And here and there they may go right through the wall itself, for holes, or tunnels, have been cut through the rocky banks.

Tourists who travel through those mountains are glad to find a hotel at a saeter on their way where they can get food or stay over night. And hotels have been built at saeters which are near the automobile roads. The hotel is a large wooden building. It stands near the huts which are the homes of the family which cares for the cattle.

Matti, Ingrid, and their brother Ole go each summer to a large saeter called Grotli. Their father has a hotel there. Grotli means “Goat’s Hill,” and Grotli looks like a goat’s hill in the summer when the goats run about on the mountain.

Early in the spring Matti, Ingrid, and Ole, and their father and their mother move to Grotli. Sometimes the snow is still on the ground when they arrive. Then the children may think that Grotli looks more like reindeer hill. A farmer, who lives near the saeter, has a herd of tame reindeer. They wander about on the mountain. They rub the snow out of the way with their noses and eat the fresh grass and moss which they find underneath.

Sometimes visitors in Norway ask, “Why must the cattle go so far away from the farm to the high pastures?” If they ask a Norwegian milkmaid, she might say, “The grass which grows on the farm must be saved for winter feed. Not enough grass grows on the farm for both summer and winter. Fresh, tender grass grows on the high mountains, so the cattle eat it in the summer. Then no grass is wasted.”

But the milkmaid may not know why the saeter is _so far_ away from the farms. And, of course, it does seem strange to American girls and boys that a farmer sends his cattle to feed in high pastures miles from his farm, while in the mountains just above his own farm graze the cattle of another farmer who lives miles away. Why cannot a farmer graze his cattle on the mountains near his home? The answer to that question is a story of long, long ago in Norway.

Long ago the farmers in Norway found that they must use the grass on the high mountains for summer feed. The king said, “Each farmer may have a part of the grass lands on the high mountains for his pasture. But each farmer must use only a certain amount of land and he must find a place which no other farmer has already claimed.”

So each farmer hunted himself a mountain pasture. When he found a space which he liked, if it had not already been claimed, he drove stakes into the ground to mark it off. He put his name on the stakes and then the land was his. Many farmers had to take pasture lands which were far from their farms. They could find no other free land.

Years and years have passed since the days when a farmer drove stakes and marked off his pasture land. The farms have passed to other owners. Perhaps now the great-great-great-grandsons of some of the farmers live on the farms, or some farms may have been sold to other families. But the new owners of the farms are also owners of the same saeters that the old farmers staked off for the farm. And that is why many a farmer today takes his cattle to a saeter far from his home.

On the Flat Farm Lands of Denmark

One day late in July, Christian was so excited he could hardly eat his dinner. School had closed for the summer vacation. The next morning Christian, who was only nine years old, was going to a farm to stay four whole weeks. In fact he would stay on the farm until time for school to open again in August.

Christian lived in the largest city in Denmark. We call that city Copenhagen, but Christian calls it Kjøbenhavn (Kuvn havn). Christian was not the only boy in that city who was excited on that July day. Many boys, and girls too, were leaving the city for a summer on a farm.

They were not going to visit aunts or uncles or grandfathers. No, their visits were going to be more exciting even than visits to aunts and uncles and grandparents would be, for many of them were going to be guests of families whom they had never seen.

Those boys and girls live in very poor homes in the city. When school closes for summer vacation, there is little for them to do. Their homes are small and there are few places near their homes where they can play. So every summer farmers invite boys and girls from the city to be their guests for four weeks of their vacation. The officials of the railroads and of steamship lines give those boys and girls free rides on the trains and boats to the farms.

Perhaps Christian was happier than many of the boys. Only a few weeks earlier a letter had come to him from the farmer whom he had visited the summer before. The letter said, “All of us here on the farm want you to come to us again this summer. I think that even the cows, the chickens, the ducks, and the geese missed you when you left last August.” No wonder Christian was excited and happy!

Morning came at last and Christian started very early on his journey to the farm. He carried only a small bag of clothes with him, so he and his mother went to the station on a street car. He passed through the gate at the station and waited on the platform for his train. Other boys and girls were waiting too. Soon they were on the train scrambling for seats by a window for they were eager to see as much of Denmark as they could.

Christian had almost a whole day’s journey to the farm. Denmark is made up of hundreds of small bodies of land with water separating them. To reach the farm Christian had to travel on two trains and two boats.

Christian was interested in all that he saw. He was not surprised to see the wide stretches of flat land, but after visiting farms of Norway you may be surprised. Christian saw a field in which black and white cows were eating the green grass. He could see far, far away across that pasture. The land was as level as a floor, with not even a tiny hill in sight.

At other places he did see hills—no very high ones though. That hilly land looks very little like land of Norway made by the giants. But the same ice-sheets did make these hills. As the glaciers that covered Denmark melted, they left behind these piles of rocks and soil which we call hills.

Some sights which Christian saw are much like the sights in the land of the Dutch children. The land of Denmark is flat like Holland, so the Danes have long made the wind work for them just as the Dutch have done. So Christian saw windmills which still pump the water off the low lands or grind the farmers’ grain.

Denmark has many small farms. Many of the farms have even less than two acres. A piece of land so small as that in America would hardly be called a farm. Of course Denmark has large farms also. But Christian saw many of the small farms as he rode across the country. The farm buildings form three sides of a square. Many times the buildings are of red brick and the roof of straw woven into a covering called a thatched roof.

The farmer was at the train to meet Christian. They rode out to the farm in a wagon behind two bay horses. After what seemed to Christian a very short ride he was opening the gate to the farm and could see the white farmhouse and barns far back across the fields.

Then began happy days for Christian. He liked the big light room at the top of the clean white house which was his own, but he liked best the big out-of-doors. He drank all the milk he wanted. He ate potatoes with heaps of butter, and eggs, and cheese, and sausages, and bread.

But Christian worked too. One of his tasks was to help gather in the eggs. The baskets were so quickly filled with eggs that the farmer took them to town twice each week. Christian went with him. They took the eggs to a large building where eggs are packed for shipping. Such a lot of eggs in that building! Christian wanted to know what the workmen did with the eggs and before the summer was over he had learned.

Some of the workers sorted the eggs, putting the big ones in one box, the middle-sized ones in another, and the small ones in another. Other workers tested them to see whether they were fresh. The fresh eggs were sent to other workmen who stamped on each egg in red the word “Danish” with a red line around it.

Christian asked, “Why do you put ‘Danish’ on the eggs?”

The workman said, “Many of these eggs are sent away from Denmark to other countries. We put the word ‘Danish’ on the eggs so that people will know that the eggs come from Denmark. Then if they like the eggs, they will know where to send for more. If they find bad eggs, they can tell us.”

Then the workman showed Christian some sheets of paper on which he kept records. From those sheets he could tell just what farmer brought in each box of eggs. He said, “You see, Christian, we keep such good records and each farmer keeps such good records that if a customer gets a bad egg, we can find the very hen that laid that egg.”

Christian knew that the workman was only joking, but the workman did know the date when the egg was laid. Christian knew too that the farmers knew which hens lay many eggs, and which hens lay large eggs.

Christian learned to milk cows too. He could milk only a little, as his hands got tired. He milked only cows that were easy to milk. But he could carry buckets of milk to the house.

In the large stable where the cows are milked, Christian saw a sheet of heavy paper tacked up over each stall. He read what was on some of those papers. They were the cows’ _grade cards_. There were good grade cards too, for they told exactly what each cow can do—how much each eats, how much milk each gives, whether that test is better or worse than other tests.

Christian felt sorry when the farmer showed him one record. That record was for a cow that was eating a great deal, but giving milk that tested low in butter fat. The farmer said that he would have to fatten that cow and use it for meat.

Christian went with the farmer to take big cans of milk and cream to the cheese factory and the creamery. The factory was in an old, old town. Christian liked to play on the narrow street near the factory.

But he always went with the farmer to take the milk and cream to the factories. Over those buildings he saw a word that he asked the farmer about. The word was the Danish word that means “Co-operative.” The farmer told Christian the “co-operative” means that the farmers are working together for the good of all. So instead of each farmer making cheese and butter on his own farm and selling it at whatever price he wishes, a group of farmers take their milk and cream to factories where cheese and butter are made for them. There the milk and cream are tested and each farmer is paid a fair price for his cans.

In the cheese factory were cheese balls marked with the word “Danish” in the oval just as the eggs were marked. The man at the cheese factory said, “We put the name ‘Danish’ upon _good_ cheese only. Anybody in any country may be sure that cheese marked ‘Danish’ has been tested before it is sold.”

Christian began to feel that it was a splendid idea to have the name “Danish” put upon only _good_ products. In that way people everywhere would come to trust their country. The farmer told him that the idea was the same for each person. He said that Christian could make his own name stand only for good things. He said, “See to it always that the work upon which you write your name is the very best work that you can do.”

One day Christian went to visit a farm that had eight hundred acres. Eight hundred acres is a large farm even in America where there is much land, and is, of course, a very large farm in a small country like Denmark. On that farm Christian learned more about the word “co-operation” which means “working together for the good of all.”

On that big farm the farmer works with a college which teaches young people how to run a farm. The young men who do the work on the farm for the farmer are studying with the college teachers how to farm. The young women who cook the meals and take care of the house are also studying with college teachers how to cook and care for a house.

Christian had already decided that he wanted to be a farmer when he was old enough. Now he thought he wanted to study how to be a good farmer on that large farm which worked with the college.

A Teller of Tales

Almost every one has read the story of The Ugly Duckling. In the story, the little duck just out of the shell looked about him and said, “How wide the world is!” And his mother replied, “This is not all the world. The world stretches far across the garden, quite into the parson’s field.”

Now that duck might have lived in the back yard of a small house in the town of Odense, which lies in the center of an island in the middle of Denmark, with water all around it. That is where the man who wrote the story of The Ugly Duckling lived. That man was Hans Christian Andersen.

The boy Hans might have been that Ugly Duckling himself. At least the world in which he lived was as hard for the boy as the poultry yard was for the duck. Hans’s father was a poor man who made and mended shoes for a living. He died when Hans was only eleven years old. Hans’s mother washed clothes for other people, to earn money enough to buy food. As she stood on the river bank washing, Hans sat by and dreamed his dreams of fairy people. Perhaps that is where he saw Thumbelina sailing on a water lily.

Other boys made fun of Hans. So the lonely boy made playmates for himself in his dreams. He made the darning needle walk and talk; his tin soldier became a great hero. He cut fairy figures out of scrap paper.

But Hans dreamed other dreams too. He wanted to do great things in the real world. His mother said, “You must go to work to earn money. The tailor will let you work in his shop.” Hans was unhappy at the thought of sitting on a stool all day sewing and sewing. So he left the town of Odense and went to the big city of Copenhagen. He said, “I’ll go on the stage and act parts in plays.” And he tried to act, but he was so awkward that he never could act well. Then he said, “I’ll sing beautiful songs on the stage.” But the teachers said that his voice was not good enough.

He made some friends in the city. They helped him get money to go to a good school. By that time he was older than the other young people studying at the school. They were not friendly to him. So once more he forgot his loneliness by dreaming dreams, and writing the stories he dreamed.

Many, many children love the Snow Queen, and the Little Match Girl. Hans Christian Andersen wrote the stories about them. He wrote many, many other tales too and won even greater fame than he had ever dreamed for himself.

He travelled much in other lands. Everywhere he went he found children reading his books or listening to his tales. Some men would have felt very important to have so much fame. But Hans Christian Andersen said, “When I see how far my thoughts have flown, I am frightened. I wonder whether I have kept my thoughts pure enough for so many children to read them.”

Little did he dream just how great was his fame. He wrote those fairy tales more than a hundred years ago. And even today no stories are more loved by children all over the world than the stories by that great teller of tales.

But perhaps the children of Denmark hear the most about the man who wrote those tales, for he was born in their country. A few years ago, the children of Denmark celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen. At the schools they acted the stories that Andersen wrote. In Copenhagen movie cameras took pictures of the plays acted by the school children. Those pictures are still shown to many children in Denmark.

In the town of Odense still stands the house where Hans Christian Andersen was born. The people of Denmark have built a building beside that old house in which to keep the things which belonged to Andersen. The street in front of that house looks much the same as it looked when the little boy, Hans, played there.

On the shelves in Andersen’s old home are his fairy tales in Danish, in English, in French, in Spanish, and in other languages too. Andersen wrote the stories in the Danish language, of course. But people in other lands wanted their children to read those wonderful tales too. So the stories have been rewritten in nearly every language in the world.

When children visit that building, they like to look into the case in which stand dolls dressed like the characters in their best-loved stories. Those dolls were dressed by little girls who lived when Andersen was writing his tales. Many children like, too, the fairy figures which Hans cut from paper. Some of those paper cuttings lie in a glass case, and beside them are the scissors Hans used when he cut them.

In the hall of that building to the memory of Andersen stands a statue of Hans Christian Andersen. Many other statues of Andersen have been erected, but none is liked better by Danish children than this one in which he is the children’s teller of tales.

A City in the Midst of Seven Mountains

From the deck of a boat nearing Norway, Harold, an eight-year-old American boy, watched the rocky shores. Harold’s father too was watching those shores. He was eagerly looking for familiar sights in the town where he had been born.

Harold was going with his father and mother to visit his grandmother who lives in Norway. She lives in the very same home in which Harold’s father had lived when a boy.

Harold had crossed the Atlantic on one of the big steamships that carry travelers from the United States to countries across the seas. He had left that steamship at a port in England. After a day’s ride on a train, he had boarded another boat to cross the North Sea to Norway.

In a few hours after the shores of Norway came into sight, Harold saw the buildings of a town built in the midst of mountains. His father told him his grandmother lived in that town. It was Bergen (bear gen) which is surrounded by seven mountains. The houses of the town were all along the side of one of the big mountains and along the lower banks of the sea. Harold’s father was as happy as a boy to see again the red-tiled roofs of those houses among the green trees of the mountain slope.

The sun was shining when the boat pulled into dock at Bergen, but the captain told Harold to have his raincoat, rubbers, and umbrella handy, as rain might fall any minute. He said, “A year has three hundred and sixty-five days and rain falls in Bergen on three hundred and sixty days. That leaves only five clear days for Bergen in a year.”

Harold’s father said that rain did not fall quite so often as the captain said. But he told Harold that records show Bergen’s rainfall to be six times as much as the rainfall in the town where Harold lives. And Harold’s town gets enough rain each year to keep the grass green and to make the plants grow well.

Harold stopped along the water front to see the fishing boats which were standing there. Men and women were selling fish from more than a hundred boats and from stands along the street near the boats. They sold cod, herring, and halibut. Harold’s father said, “Bergen is the largest fishing market in the world. The fish are brought to Bergen in boats which fish far to the north of Bergen in the waters of the Arctic.”

But they hurried away to grandmother’s house. Harold was eager to see the grandmother whom he had never seen. Grandmother was eagerly waiting for her visitors too. She showed Harold a room which was to be his room for the summer.

The room was small. Both the walls and the floor were painted light brown. A small bed of wood stood in one corner. Over the clean white sheets, Harold found a soft quilt. The quilt was so fluffy and thick that Harold thought it must be a small feather bed. His grandmother said that the quilt was stuffed with down taken from the nests of eider ducks.

Harold enjoyed the warm cover each night, for even in summer the nights in Bergen are cool. But that soft quilt was hard to keep in place, no matter how carefully it was tucked in.

A tall narrow stove stood in one corner of the room. Harold did not need a fire, but he found a box of wood beside the stove ready for a fire when the cold days came.

In a few days, Harold knew his way around the old city of Bergen. Sometimes he walked along narrow streets between rows of wooden houses. Some of the houses are very, very old—even more than six hundred years old.

Some of the shops which Harold passed were on wide streets. Both the shops and the streets look much like shops and streets in American towns. Of course some shops sold raincoats, umbrellas, and rubbers. Other shops sold articles which the Norwegians think visitors from other lands will like. On the walls of those old shops hang bright-colored rugs woven on a hand loom. One day Harold saw girls dressed in old Norwegian costumes weaving a rug.

Harold bought a gift for his mother in one shop. It was a tiny Viking ship made of silver with a dragon’s head at its prow. Inside the ship was a little spoon. The shopkeeper said that the little ship was made to hold salt for the table. Harold bought himself some woolen mittens. They were very warm mittens made from the wool of the sheep of Norway—white sheep and black sheep. The mittens were white with black figures on them. The shopkeeper said that Norwegian women who live in the country knit or crochet the mittens and weave the rugs during the winter when they cannot work in the fields.

Sometimes Harold did not get home at the right time for meals. His grandmother thought that queer for any boy. She said that Harold’s father had always been ready for every meal when he was a boy. But at first Harold just couldn’t remember what were the right hours for meals at grandmother’s house. He was always on time for the first breakfast, which was served very early. He ate bread and butter and drank milk, while his grandmother, his mother, and his father ate bread and butter and drank coffee. But Harold often forgot the second breakfast, which grandmother served at ten o’clock. Then to grandmother’s surprise he would come into the house at twelve o’clock expecting lunch. He got a lunch of course, and then might forget that dinner was served at three o’clock. Grandmother did not scold one bit though, and in a few days Harold learned to be on time for every meal. He liked grandmother’s tea, which she served at eight o’clock each evening. He always asked for some thick brown goat’s cheese to eat with his bread and butter as he drank his tea.

How pleased grandmother was when Harold went over to her after a meal, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Tak for maten.” He was saying, “Thank you for the food,” as his father had taught him to say it. All polite girls and boys in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark say, “Thank you for the food,” to their mothers after a meal.

In a City Built on Islands

One day Harold and his father left Bergen to visit Harold’s cousin Albert who lived in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. They traveled for a day and a night on a train.

The train crossed Norway on Norway’s longest railway which passed through the high mountains. The electric train climbed the mountains easily and Harold saw that part of Norway which his storybooks call “the home of the giants.”

Then the train left Norway and crossed Sweden. Harold thought the farms in Sweden looked much like the farms around his home in Minnesota. The fields were large. The houses were far apart. Sometimes the train went for miles before Harold saw a farmhouse.

When Harold reached Stockholm he saw a city which to him looked much like any other city. But his cousin Albert said, “You will get your best view of Stockholm from high above the city.” So he took them to the top of a tall tower and they looked down on the city. “What a queer city it is!” said Harold. “It is spread out over many islands.”

Then Albert told Harold how Stockholm came to be built where it is. Albert had learned about the building of the city at school.

The city was built nearly seven hundred years ago. A rich nobleman planned the city in the days when many pirates sailed on the Baltic Sea, the sea which Stockholm faces. The nobleman wanted to build a fortress for protection from the pirates. All along the sea coast were islands—hundreds of islands. The nobleman chose three small islands back from the sea with many other islands in front of them and built a wall around them. He thought that behind the wall his people would be safe from the pirates.

A town grew up behind the wall. The days of the pirates passed. Stockholm became a city of trade. It grew and grew. Buildings spread over other islands until today the city covers a dozen islands in a large lake which opens into a channel of water which flows to the sea.

And Harold and Albert looked down on that city and watched the boats coming and going on the many waterways.

Albert took his guests to a little home outside the city. “This is where we live in the summer,” he said. Harold thought the place looked like a tiny city of playhouses, but as they came nearer he saw that the playhouses were real homes.

Harold’s aunt met them at the door of one of the cottages. It had two rooms and a porch. Vines and rose bushes grew over the porch. All the other cottages were much like the one where Albert lived.

Around each house was a garden spot. Albert said, “These are our ‘little farms.’” Albert does most of the gardening on his “little farm.”

The summer home though does not belong to Albert. The city owns those garden spots. A few years ago many countries of the world were at war. Sweden could not get the food from other countries that she needed. Stockholm began then the plan of renting garden spots to its citizens, so that they might grow the food that they needed. The plan proved so good that the city kept the garden spots after the war was over. And Albert’s father rents a little farm for Albert each summer. He pays a very small sum for the use of the garden and cottage for the entire summer—a sum equal to about five dollars in American money.

Albert showed Harold the vegetables, fruit, and flowers which he was growing on his farm. “In the fall,” he said, “I’ll take my best specimens to the fair in the city. I’m sure to get a prize for some of them.”

Each day after Albert had hoed his garden, he and Harold went to play with the other boys who also lived on little farms. One day they went to the lake to swim and to ride on the rafts. The boys had made the rafts of logs. Between the two logs at each end of the rafts they had fastened a board for seats. Albert rowed the raft on which he and Harold rode while they rested from their swimming. Harold only laughed and swam away again when Albert tipped the raft and threw him into the water.

One morning the boys went to the city again. They walked through the streets toward the quay—the place where the boats land. Harold noticed that all the buildings were of white stone. He knew that Sweden, like Norway, was a land of many forests. Why then were there so few wooden houses? He asked Albert. His cousin told him, “The first city was built of wood, but fires came and destroyed the homes. People kept building of wood for many years, but again and again fires destroyed the homes. Wood is not Sweden’s only building material. Under the soil around Stockholm is a fine building stone called granite. So the buildings you see in this new city are of granite.”

The boys stopped along the street to visit a flower market. It was bright with many colors. For in that city so far north many flowers grow. In the market place were pinks, violets, sweet peas, roses, asters, dahlias, and long-stemmed gladioli.

About noon the boys got on a boat at the quay to go to the King’s palace. The palace of the King stands in an old part of the city. It is on one of the islands where the old wall stood so long ago. Near the King’s palace are a few streets of old buildings with sharp gabled roofs. That part of Stockholm is called “the city between bridges.” Day and night boats pass under the bridges and move along the water in front of the palace.

The boys reached the palace about noon. Albert wanted Harold to see the changing of the King’s guards. As they neared the palace, they heard sounds of band music. In the courtyard beside the palace, they saw a line of guards dressed in uniform such as guards of the palace have worn for hundreds of years. Then the line of marching men came into sight. The band in uniform marched first, then the guards who were to take the place of those guards now at the palace. They crossed the bridge and entered the courtyard. The guards drilled for a few minutes at the command of the officer. The band played more music. Then the commander told the new guards what their duties were and the old guards marched away, leaving them to protect the king and his property.

The next day Albert was going on a long hike with his Boy Scout troop. The scout leader said that Harold could go with them. Early in the morning the boys gathered near the water front to wait for their leader. Soon Harold felt at home with the group of boys wearing khaki suits and carrying knapsacks even though he could not speak their language. Many of the boys could speak a little English and they talked to Harold in his language.

The scouts hiked several miles that day. They stopped on the grounds of an old, old castle. In a few minutes tents were pitched for the night.

The leader took them into the castle, which had been built hundreds of years ago. They went to the banquet hall of knights of old. Harold had never seen such a beautiful room. The walls were covered with paintings of kings and knights. The ceiling was of gold. The boys stood before the King’s throne and imagined a page kneeling there to be dubbed a knight. They could almost hear the words, “I dub thee knight. Be ever true to your country. Be ever strong; protect the weak; and do good deeds.”

Then outside on the courtyard of that old castle, the scouts took their oath—not unlike the one the knights of old had taken so many years ago. They too pledged obedience to the laws of their country. They promised to be strong and to go forth to do good deeds day by day.

The Children of the North Celebrate

1. THE YULE-TIDE

Long, long ago, so the old stories of the North say, frost giants who lived on the mountains wanted to keep the earth in darkness and cold, and the gods who lived in the valleys fought with the giants to keep sunshine and warmth on the earth.

Early in January each year when the nights were longest, the people in the old days said, “Yule, the frost giant, has won in the battle against Odin, the god of the sun.” Now the people knew that Odin would win the next battle, which was always fought in the middle of the summer when the days were longest; therefore they celebrated Yule’s victory in the happy thought that Odin would soon triumph over the frost giant. They lighted fires and made feasts which lasted for weeks. And so began the Yule-tide celebration which the children of those northern lands today celebrate each year.

After years and years, the people who lived in these lands became Christians. They began to celebrate the day the Christ-child was born. As the years passed, the Christmas celebration and the Yule celebration came to be one big feast time.

The weeks before Yule time are busy weeks. The houses must be cleaned. Cakes, cookies, and bread are baked. Sausages are made. Girls are sewing on gifts and boys are sawing and pounding, making gifts too. The stores in the cities and towns are bright with decorations and happy buyers crowd about buying gifts.

The day before Christmas comes at last. And for the girls and boys of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark the day before Christmas is a merrier day even than Christmas Day. Everybody is up early on that day. A tree of spruce or fir is set in place in the living room. No home is too poor to have a yule-tree in that land of evergreen trees. Norway and Sweden have enough trees in their forests to supply every home, and ships carry trees from their forests to the children of Denmark.

As soon as the Yule-tree is up the merriment begins. The girls and boys help decorate the tree with strings of bright paper, painted cones from the evergreen trees, colored ornaments, and red candles, or bright electric lights. The boys place a big log in the fireplace ready to brighten the room with its glow.

Another tree is then decorated in the yard for the birds. The boys set up a large branch of a tree and help the girls tie bunches of oats and barley upon it so that the birds will have their Yule-time feast.

After lunch the girls and boys stay away from the Yule-tree. But how excited they are! For it is then that secret packages are heaped on the floor underneath the branches of the tree. Darkness comes early in the northern parts of these countries at Christmas time. In the far north the sun never shines at this time of the year. As early as three o’clock, Mother lights the tree and Father starts the Yule-log burning. Then all the family gather around the tree and the best fun of the day begins. Those children do not have to wait until Christmas morning to see their gifts. The packages are passed out as soon as the tree is lighted on Christmas Eve. Under the tree are presents for everybody—dolls, toy trains, books, knives, skates, sleds, skis, and candies and nuts and many, many other gifts too.

After the gifts are unwrapped sometimes Father and Mother and the children and the servants join hands and sing carols around the tree. By that time the dinner is ready. And that dinner is one of the best of the year with fish, potatoes, peas, flat bread, sausages, ham, or maybe a goose, pudding, and cakes. The children are tired and ready for bed at an early hour.

The next morning they are up early again. While it is quite dark they go to church for a Christmas service. Pretty Yule-trees stand beside the altar and the children carry gifts for the poor and place them beneath the Yule-trees. They sing songs, repeat their prayers, and listen to the pastor’s story of the Christ-child.

Christmas Day is a quiet day in most of the homes in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. But after Christmas is over the merrymaking begins again. There are more feasts and parties. The children skate, and ski, and coast on their sleds as much as they please, for school is closed during the whole of the Yule season.

2. MID-SUMMER EVE

American girls and boys sometimes dance around a Maypole and crown a queen on the first day of May. The girls and boys of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have a midsummer holiday when they too dance around a gaily decorated pole, but they are not celebrating the coming of May. They are greeting the long summer day.

In the long ago people believed that June twenty-third was the day on which Odin, the sun god, won in the fight against the frost giants. So they danced and sang in praise of Odin. And people of those lands have kept up the old custom.

The school children of one Swedish town were gay and happy on the twenty-third of June. The big boys set up a tall pole in a field near the schoolhouse. Then a crowd of girls and boys tied branches of fir, spruce, and pine on the pole. They put bright flowers among the green branches.

When the pole was bright with the evergreen and flowers, a troop of girls and boys came from the schoolhouse and played games on the grass around the Maypole. But the greatest fun would come after dark. So early in the afternoon they hurried home to dress in their gayest costumes to be ready for the frolic that night.

Grown-ups came to the night celebration too. The dance lasted far into the night, for all through those northern lands there is no darkness on the midsummer eve. The sun shines all through the night in the places far to the north, but even in the southern part of Sweden where these children live, the sun was gone but a few hours. During those hours while the sun was gone, the sky was almost as bright as day with twilight.

3. AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY IN DENMARK

In one town in Denmark, some girls and boys are as eager for the Fourth of July as American girls and boys are. For, like many American girls and boys, on that day they are going to a picnic in a park. Yes, they are going to a Fourth-of-July picnic and a picnic as much like an American picnic as they can have. About the only things missing from their picnic are firecrackers. The law of Denmark will not permit firecrackers.

The park is called The American National Park. The bands play patriotic American music. The people sing American patriotic songs, “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “America.” Speakers tell about America and how our country won independence. The Stars and Stripes float in the breeze with the Danish flag of red and white. People play ball and run races. They eat lunches from big lunch baskets.

One American visitor asked, “Who are the people celebrating our Independence Day?” If you asked that question at the park, and a Danish boy answered, the answer would be, “This is the Danish-American Club.” Have you ever heard of Danish-American clubs in America? The members of Danish-American clubs in America are people who have come from Denmark to live in America. The Danish-American Club in Denmark is made up of Danish people who have lived in America at some time and Danish people who have relatives living in America.

Svend is one boy you might meet at a Fourth of July picnic in Denmark. Svend was born in the city of Chicago in the United States. His father and mother were both born in Denmark, but they lived in America about ten years. Svend’s father studied in the United States and learned to be a librarian.