CHAPTER XII
A WINTER CARNIVAL
"Abroad is good but home is better," quoted Birger, as the railroad train whizzed across the country, bearing the twins toward home once more after four happy days of sight-seeing in Göteborg.
"Vacation will soon be over and we shall be back again in our dear old school," exclaimed Gerda, with a comical expression on her face.
"I feel as if we had been going to the best kind of a school all summer," said her brother, looking out of the window at the broad fields and little red farmhouses cuddling down in the green landscape. "We have been learning about the largest cities, and the canals and railroads, the lakes and rivers, and that is what we have to do when we study geography in school."
"If I ever make a geography," and Gerda gave a great sigh, "I shall have nothing but pictures in it. That is the way the real earth looks outside of the geographies. There are just millions and millions of pictures fitted together, and not a single word said about them."
Birger laughed. "I will study your geography," he said, "if I am not too busy making one of my own."
"What kind of a geography shall you make?" asked Gerda.
"I shall put in my book all my thoughts about the sights I see," he answered. "It will read like this, 'The harbor at Göteborg made me think of Stockholm harbor, with all the different ships that sail away to foreign lands; and of the great world beyond the sea.'"
"Your geography would never please the children half so much as mine," said Gerda; "because we don't all think alike. It makes some people sea-sick when they think of ships."
"Here we are in Stockholm," said Lieutenant Ekman, gathering up the bags and bundles and helping the children out of the train. "Before we write a geography we must see about putting little Karen Klasson under the doctor's care."
But they found that Fru Ekman had already taken Karen to see the doctor, and had made arrangements for her treatment at the Gymnastic Institute.
"The doctor says that I shall be able to walk without a crutch by springtime, if I take the gymnastics faithfully every day," said Karen happily.
"Oh, Gerda," she added, "ever so many of your friends have been to see me. They are such kind boys and girls!"
"Of course they are! They are the best in the world," Gerda declared, and it seemed, indeed, as if there could be no kinder children anywhere than those who filled all the autumn days with the magic of their fun and good-will for the little lame Karen.
Bouquets of flowers, and plants with bright blossoms, simple games, and new books found their way to her room. There was seldom a day when one or another of the friends did not come to tell her about some of their good times, or plan a little pleasure for her; and Karen seemed to find as much enjoyment in hearing of the fun as if she, herself, could really take part in it.
"What is the carnival?" she asked Gerda one evening in late November, when the last of the friends had clattered down the stairs, and the two little girls were sitting beside the tall porcelain stove which filled the room with a comfortable heat. "I have heard you all talking about it for days; but I don't know just what it is."
"It is a day for winter sports, and all kinds of fun, and you shall sit in the casino at the Deer Park and see it for yourself," said Gerda, giving Karen a loving hug.
When the day of the carnival arrived at last, and Karen sat in the casino, cosily wrapped in furs, and looked out over the Djurgård, she knew that she had never dreamed of so much fun and beauty.
There had been heavy hoar frosts for several nights, and the trees had become perfectly white,—the pines standing straight as powdered sentinels, the birches bending under their silvery covering like frozen fountains of spray. The ice was covered with skaters, their sharp steel shoes flashing in the sun, their merry laughter ringing out in the cold, crisp air.
It seemed as if everyone in Stockholm were skating, or snow-shoeing, or skimming over the fields of snow on long skis. Even Fru Ekman, after making Karen comfortable in the casino, strapped a pair of skates on her own feet and astonished the little girl with the wonderful circles and figures she could cut on the ice.
There was no place for beginners in such a company. And indeed, it almost seemed as if Swedish boys and girls could skate without beginning, for many little children were darting about among the crowds of grown people.
Of course Karen's eyes were fixed most often upon the twins, and as they chased each other over the hurdles, or wound in and out among the sail-skaters and long lines of merry-makers, for the first time in her life she had a feeling of envy.
When Gerda left the skaters at last, to sit for a while beside her friend, she saw at once the thought that was in Karen's mind. So, instead of speaking about the fun of skating, she began to talk about the doctor's promise that the lame back would be entirely cured before summer.
"And there is really just as much fun in the summer-time," she said, "for then we can swim, and bathe, and row boats on the lake. You can go to Rättvik with us, too, and then you shall dance and be gayer than any one else."
"Oh, see, there are some men on skis!" cried Karen suddenly, forgetting her feeling of envy in watching the wonderful speed made by the party of ski-runners who came into sight on the crest of the long hill opposite the ice-basin.
The skis, or snow-skates, are a pair of thin strips of hard wood about four inches wide and eight or nine feet long, pointed and curved upward in front. The snow-skater binds one on each foot and glides over the snowy fields, or coasts down the hills as easily as if he were on a toboggan.
"That is the best way in the world to travel over the snow," said Birger, who had come to find Gerda. "See how fast they go!"
Suddenly one of the men darted away from the others, balanced himself for a moment with his long staff, and then shot down the hill like an arrow. A mound of snow six feet high had been built up directly in his path, and as he reached it, he crouched down, gave a spring, and landed thirty or forty feet below, plowing up the light snow into a great cloud, and then slipping on down the hill and out upon the frozen bay.
Many others tried the slide and jump: some fell and rolled over in the snow, others lost off their skis, which came coasting down hill alone like runaway sleds, while others made a long leap with beautiful grace and freedom.
"This method of travelling across country on skis, when there is deep snow, is hundreds of years old," said Fru Ekman, who had come to send the twins away for more fun, while she took her place again beside Karen.
"Men were skiing in Scandinavia as long ago as old Roman times, and
Magnus the Good, who defeated the Roman legions, had a company of
ski-soldiers. Gustav Vasa organized a corps of snow-skaters, and Gustavus
Adolphus used his runners as messengers and scouts."
At that moment there was a sudden commotion outside the door, and a crowd of the skaters came into the casino for some hot coffee, their merry voices and laughter filling the room. Seldom is there gathered together a company of finer men and women, boys and girls, than Karen saw before her. Descendants of the Vikings these were,—golden-haired, keen-eyed and crimson-cheeked.
"Look at that great fellow, taller than all the others," Fru Ekman whispered to Karen. "He is the champion figure-skater of Europe."
"He looks like Baldur, the god of the sun," Karen whispered in reply; and then forgot everything else in watching the gay company.
"I have never seen so many people having such a good time before," she explained to Fru Ekman after a little while. "At the Sea-gull Light there was never anything like this. It is more like the stories of the gathering of the gods, than just plain Sweden.
"I suppose Birger is going to try for a skating prize some day," she added rather wistfully.
Fru Ekman bent and kissed the little girl. "Yes," she answered, "that is why he puts on his skates every day and practices figure-skating on the ice in the canals. But keep a brave heart, little Karen. You, too, shall wear skates some day."
Karen's face lighted up with a happy smile, and a fire of hope was kindled in her heart which made the long hours shorter, and the hard work at the gymnasium easier to bear.