Part 4

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.