Gerda In Sweden Part 14

Everyone seemed charged with the electricity, and little Karen said softly, "I never felt so strange before. The lights go up and down my back to the tip of my toes."

"It is the elves of light dancing round the room," said Birger with a laugh.

"No," said Gerda, "it is the Tomtar playing with the electric wires."

Then, as they all stood watching the wonderful display in the heavens, the door opened and Lieutenant Ekman came into the room. "Here is a letter for Karen from her mother," he said; "I have had it in my pocket all day."

"Oh, let me see it," said Karen, and she turned and ran across the room.

Yes, ran,--with her crutch standing beside the chair at the window, and her two feet pattering firmly on the floor.

"Look at Karen," cried Gerda. "She has forgotten her crutch!"

Karen held her mother's letter in her hand, and her two eyes were s.h.i.+ning like stars. "I feel as if I should never need my crutch again," she said.

Then she turned to Fru Ekman and asked breathlessly, "Do you believe that I will?"

"I am sure that you won't," replied Fru Ekman, stooping to kiss the happy child. "I have noticed for a long time that your back was growing straighter and stronger, and you were walking more easily."

Gerda clapped her hands and ran to throw her arms around her friend. "Oh, Karen," she exclaimed, "this is the best birthday gift of all! The Tomtar sent it on the electric wires."

"No," said Birger, "it was the elves of light dancing across the room."

But Karen looked at the little family cl.u.s.tered so close around her. "It is my crown of joy and is from each one of you," she said; "but from Gerda most of all."

CHAPTER XV

THE MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL

It was the middle of June. School was over and vacation had begun. Gerda and Birger were on their way to Rattvik, taking Karen with them so that she might see the great midsummer festival before going to spend the summer at the Sea-gull Light.

"Isn't this the best fun we ever had,--to be travelling alone, without any one to take care of us?" asked Birger, as the train whizzed along past fields and forests, lakes and rivers.

"It feels just as if we were tourists," replied Gerda, straightening her hat and nestling close to Karen.

Karen dimpled and smiled. "I don't see your wonder-eyes, such as tourists always have," she said.

"That is because we have been to Rattvik so many times that we know every house and tree and rail-fence along the way," answered Birger. "We have stopped at Gefle and seen the docks with their great piles of lumber and barrels of tar; and we have been to Upsala, the ancient capital of Sweden, and seen the famous University which was founded fifteen years before Columbus discovered America."

"Last summer Father took us to Falun to visit the wonderful copper mines," added Gerda; "but I never want to go there again," and she s.h.i.+vered as she thought of the dark underground halls and chambers.

"We saw a fire there, which was lighted hundreds of years ago and has never once been allowed to go out," said Birger. "The miners light their lamps and torches at the flame."

"Look, there are the chimneys of Falun now," cried Gerda, pointing out of the car window; and a half-hour later the children found themselves at the neat little Rattvik station.

"Six o'clock, and just on time," said Grandmother Ekman's cheerful voice, and the next moment all three were gathered in a great hug.

"Is there room for triplets in your house?" asked Gerda. "We have outgrown our twins.h.i.+p now, and there are three of us, instead of two."

"There is enough of everything, for Karen to have her good share," said the grandmother heartily; and they were soon driving along the pleasant country road, toward the red-painted farmhouse and the quiet living-room where the tall clock was still ticking cheerfully.

The next morning, and the next, the twins were up bright and early to show Karen all their favorite haunts; and the days flew by like minutes.

"Don't you love it, here in Rattvik, Karen dear?" asked Gerda, on the third day, as the two little girls were busily at work in the pleasant living-room.

"Yes," replied Karen; "but you never told me half enough beautiful things about it. Surely there can be no lovelier place in the whole world than the mill-pool where we went yesterday with Linda Nilsson."

Karen was coloring the letters in a motto to hang on the wall: and Gerda, who was weaving a rug on her grandmother's wooden loom, crossed the room to admire her friend's work. She leaned against Karen's chair and read the words of the motto aloud: "To read and not know, is to plow and not sow."

"That is Grandmother Ekman's favorite motto," she said. "She believes that a burning, golden plowshare was dropped from heaven ages ago, in the beginning of Sweden's history, as a symbol of what the G.o.ds expected of the people; and she says that a well-kept farm and a well-read book are the most beautiful things in the world."

Birger looked up from the door-step where he was whittling out a mast for one of his boats. "If I didn't intend to be an admiral in the navy when I am a man," he said, "I should come here and take care of the farm. It really is the prettiest farmhouse and the best farm in Dalarne."

"It certainly will be the prettiest by night, when we have it dressed up for the midsummer festival," Gerda declared. "Come, Birger! Come, Karen!

We must go and gather flowers and birch leaves to decorate the house."

"But we must put away our work first," said orderly Karen, gathering up her paints and brushes.

Gerda ran to push the loom back into the corner. As she did so, she said with a smile, "The first rug I ever made was very ugly. It had a great many dark strips in it. That was because my grandmother made me weave in a dark strip every time I was naughty."

Karen laughed. "How I would like to see it," she said.

"Oh, I have it now. I will show it to you," and Gerda crossed the room and opened one of the chests which were ranged against the wall.

"This is my own chest, where my grandmother keeps everything I make," she said, as she lifted the cover and took out a bundle. Opening the bundle, she unrolled a funny little rug.

Pointing to a wide black stripe in the middle, Gerda said, "That was for the time I broke the vinegar jug, and spoiled Ebba Jorn's dress."

"Oh, tell me about it!" cried Karen.

"No," replied Gerda, "it was too naughty to tell about;" and she put the rug quickly back into the chest.

"I didn't know you were ever naughty," said Karen, laughing merrily.

Then, as the two little girls put on their caps and took up their baskets to go flower-hunting, she asked, "Who is Ebba Jorn?"

"She lives across the lake, and she is going to be married to-morrow,"

answered Gerda. "We can walk in her procession."

Karen gave a little gasp of pleasure. "Oh, what fun!" she exclaimed. Then she stopped and looked down at her dress. "But I have nothing to wear,"

she said. "All my prettiest dresses went home on the steamer with your father."

"We shall wear our rainbow skirts," Gerda told her. "And you can wear one of mine."

Just then she caught sight of a crowd of boys and girls in a distant meadow, and ran to join them; calling to Birger and Karen to come, too.

"They are gathering flowers to trim the Maypole for the midsummer festival," she cried.