When the last of the gifts had been distributed, there was the dinner, with the delicious lut-fisk, the roast goose, and the rice pudding. But before it could be eaten, each one must first taste the dainties on the smorgsbord,--a side-table set out with a collection of relishes.

There was a tiny lump in Karen's throat when she ate a bit of her mother's cheese; but she swallowed them both bravely, and was as gay as any one at the dinner table.

All the boys and girls in Sweden are sent to bed early on Christmas Eve.

They must be ready to get up the next morning, long before daylight, and go to church with their parents to hear the Christmas service and sing the Christmas carols. So nine o'clock found Karen and the twins gathering up their gifts and saying good-night.

"Thanks, thanks for everything!" cried the two little girls, throwing their arms around Fru Ekman's neck; and Karen added rather shyly, "Thanks for such a happy Christmas, dearest Tant."

"But this is only Christmas Eve," Gerda told her, as they scampered off to bed. "For two whole weeks there will be nothing but fun and merriment.

No school! No tasks! Nothing to do but make everyone joyous and happy everywhere. Yule-tide is the best time of all the year!"

CHAPTER XIV

SPURS AND A CROWN

"Rida, rida, ranka!

The horse's name is Blanka.

Little rider, dear and sweet, Now no spurs are on your feet; When you've grown and won them, Childhood's bliss is done then.

"Rida, rida, ranka!

The horse's name is Blanka.

Little one with eyes so blue, A kingly crown will come to you, A crown so bright and splendid!

Then youthful joy is ended."

Fru Ekman sang the words of the old Swedish lullaby as she had sung them many times, years before, when the twins lay in their blue cradle at Grandmother Ekman's farm in Dalarne; but now the boy stood proudly in a suit of soldier gray, and the girl made a pretty picture in a set of soft new furs.

It was the morning of the twins' twelfth birthday, and a March snow-storm was covering the housetops and pavements with a white fur coat, "Just like my own pretty coat," Gerda said, turning slowly round and round so that everyone might see the warm white covering.

"The snow will soon be gone," she added, "but my furs will wait for me until next winter."

"You may wear them to school to-day in honor of your birthday," said her mother; "but Birger's soldier suit seems a little out of season."

Birger had taken a fancy to have a suit of gray with black tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, such as the Swedish soldiers wear, and it had been given to him with a new Swedish flag, as a match for Gerda's furs.

Lieutenant Ekman turned his son around in order to see the fit of the trim jacket. "When you get the gun to go with it," he told the lad, "you will be a second Gustavus Adolphus."

"If I am to be as great a man as Gustavus Adolphus, I shall have to go to war," replied Birger; "and there seems to be little chance for a war now."

"There are many peaceful ways by which a man may serve his country,"

Lieutenant Ekman told his son; "but King Gustavus II had to fight to keep Sweden from being swallowed up by the other nations."

"I could never understand how Sweden happened to have such a great fighter as Gustavus Adolphus," said Karen; but Gerda shook a finger at her.

"Sh!" she said, "that isn't the way to talk about your own country. And have you forgotten Gustav Vasa? He was the first of the Vasa line of kings; and he and Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII made the name of Vasa one of the most ill.u.s.trious in Swedish history."

"Karen will never forget Gustav Vasa," said Birger, "after she has been to Dalarne and seen all the places where he was in hiding before he was a king."

"Yes," said Gerda, "there's the barn where he worked at threshing grain, and the house where the woman lowered him out of the window in the night, and the Stone of Mora, on the bank of the river, where he spoke to the men of Dalarne and urged them to fight for freedom."

"And there's the stone house in Mora over the cellar where Margit Larsson hid him when the Danish soldiers were close on his track," added Birger.

"The inscription says:--

"'Gustav Eriksson Vasa, while in exile and wandering in Dalarne with a view of stirring up the people to fight for Fatherland and Freedom, was saved by the presence of mind of a Dalecarlian woman, and so escaped the troops sent by the Tyrant to arrest him.

"'This monument is gratefully erected by the Swedish people to the Liberator.'"

Karen laughed. "How can you remember it so well?" she asked. "It sounded as if you were reading it."

"That is because I have read it so often," replied Birger. "Gustav Vasa is my favorite hero. He drove the Danes out of the country and won freedom for the Swedish people."

"He was the Father of his Country," said Gerda, and she seized Birger's new flag and waved it over her head.

"Come, children, it is time for you to go to school," Fru Ekman told them; and soon Karen was trudging off to her gymnastic exercises, and the twins were clattering down the stairs with their books.

"That was a good song that Mother was singing this morning," Birger told his sister. "I'd like to wear spurs on my feet. How they would rattle over these stone pavements!"

"I'd rather have 'a crown so bright and splendid,'" said Gerda; "but I'll have to be contented with my cooking-cap to-day instead." Then she bade her brother good-bye and ran up the steps of the school-house, where, after her morning lessons, she would spend an hour in the cooking-cla.s.s.

At five o'clock the three children were all at home again, and dressed for the party which the twins had every year on their birthday.

"It is time the girls and boys were here," said Gerda, standing before the mirror in the living-room to fasten a pink rose in the knot of ribbon at her throat.

"Here they come!" cried Birger, throwing open the door, and the twelve children who had come before, bringing packages for the surprise box, came again,--this time with little birthday gifts for the twins.

For an hour there was the greatest confusion, with a perfect babel of merry voices and laughter. The gifts were opened and admired by everyone.

Gerda put on her fur coat and cap, Birger showed a fine new pair of skates which his father had given him, and Karen brought out a box of little cakes which her mother had sent for the party.

But when the children formed in a long line and Fru Ekman led the way to the dining-room, their excitement knew no bounds.

The table was a perfect bower of beautiful flowers. There was a bouquet of bright blossoms at every plate, and long ropes of green leaves and blossoms were twined across the table, in and out among the dishes. At Gerda's place there was a wreath of violets, with violet ribbons on knife, fork and spoon; a bunch of violets was tucked under her napkin, and a big bow of violet ribbon was tied on her chair.

Birger's flowers were scarlet pinks, with scarlet ribbons and a scarlet bow; and at the two ends of the table were the two birthday cakes, almost hidden among flowers and wreaths, with Birger's name on one and Gerda's on the other, done in colored candies set in white frosting.

Another happy hour was spent at the table, and then the guests trooped away to their homes, leaving the twins to look over their gifts once more.

But the best gift was still to come,--a never-to-be-forgotten gift that came on that wonderful night of their twelfth birthday.

All day there had been a strange feeling in the air. When the girls brushed their hair in the morning it was full of tiny sparkles and stood out from their heads like clouds of gold, and Birger had found, early in the day, that if he stroked the cat's fur it cracked and snapped like matches, much to Fru Kitty's surprise.

Now, when Gerda went to look out of the window, she called to the others to come quickly to see the northern lights; for out of the north there had come a gorgeous illumination, filling the heavens with a marvellous radiance such as only the aurora borealis can give.

Banners of crimson, yellow and violet flamed and flared from horizon to zenith; sheets of glimmering light streamed across the sky, swaying back and forth, and changing from white to blue and green, with once in a while a magnificent tongue of red flame shooting higher than the others.

"It is a carnival of light," said Gerda, in a tone of awe. She had often seen the northern lights, but never any so brilliant as these.