Gerda in Sweden

by Etta Blaisdell McDonald

CHAPTER XIII

YULE-TIDE JOYS

It was the day before Christmas,—such a busy day in the Ekman household. In fact, it had been a busy week in every household in Sweden, for before the tree is lighted on Christmas Eve every room must be cleaned and scrubbed and polished, so that not a speck of dirt or dust may be found anywhere.

Gerda, with a dainty cap on her hair, and a big apron covering her red dress from top to toe, was dusting the pleasant living-room; and Karen, perched on a high stool at the dining-room table, was polishing the silver. The maids were flying from room to room with brooms and brushes; and in the kitchen Fru Ekman and the cook were preparing the lut-fisk and making the rice pudding.

The lut-fisk is a kind of smoked fish—salmon, ling, or cod—prepared in a delicious way which only a Swedish housewife understands. It is always the very finest fish to be had in the market, and before it reaches the market it is the very finest fish that swims in the sea. Every fisherman who sails from the west coast of Sweden—and there are hundreds of them—gives to his priest the two largest fish which he catches during the season. It is these fish which are salted and smoked for lut-fisk, and sold in the markets for Christmas and Easter.

When Gerda ran out into the kitchen to get some water for her plants, she stopped to taste the white gravy which her mother was making for the lut-fisk.

Then as she danced back through the dining-room to tell Karen about the pudding she sang:—

"Away, away to the fishers' pier,
Many fishes we'll find there,—Big salmon,
Good salmon:
Seize them by the neck,
Stuff them in a sack,
And keep them till Christmas and Easter."

"Hurry and finish the silver," she added, "and then we will help Mother set the smörgåsbord for our dinner. We never had half such delicious things for it before. There is the pickled herring your father sent us, and the smoked reindeer from Erik's father in Lapland; and Grandmother Ekman sent us strawberry jam, and raspberry preserve, and cheese, and oh, so many goodies!" Gerda clapped her hands so hard that some of the water she was carrying to her plants was spilled on the floor. "Oh, dear me!" she sighed, "there is something more for me to do. We'd never be ready for Yule if it wasn't for the Tomtar."

The Tomtar are little old men with long gray beards and tall pointed red caps, who live under the boards and in the darkest corners of the chests. They come creeping out to do their work in the middle of the night, when the house is still, and they are especially helpful at Christmas time.

The two little girls had been talking about the Tomtar for weeks.
Whenever Karen found a mysterious package lying forgotten on the table,
Gerda would hurry it away out of sight, saying, "Sh! Little Yule Tomten
must have left it."

And one day when Gerda found a dainty bit of embroidery under a cushion, it was Karen's turn to say, "Let me have it quick! Yule Tomten left it for me." Then both little girls shrieked with laughter.

Birger said little about the Tomtar and pretended that he did not believe in them at all; but when Gerda set out a dish of sweets for the little old men, he moved it down to a low stool where they would have no trouble in finding it.

But now the Tomtar were all snugly hidden away for the day, so Gerda had to wipe up the water for herself, and then run back to her dusting; but before it was finished, Birger and his father came up the stairs,—one tugging a fragrant spruce tree, the other carrying a big bundle of oats on his shoulder.

"Here's a Christmas dinner for your friends, the birds," Birget told
Karen, showing her the oats.

For a moment Karen's chin quivered and her eyes filled with tears, as she thought of the pole on the barn at home where she had always fastened her own bundle of grain; but she smiled through her tears and said cheerfully, "The birds of Stockholm will have plenty to eat for one day at least, if all the bundles of grain in the markets are sold."

"That they will," replied Birger. "No one in Sweden forgets the birds on Christmas day. You should see the big bundles of grain that they hang up in Rättvik."

"Come, Birger," called his father from the living-room, "we must set up the tree so that it can be trimmed; and then we will see about the dinner for the birds."

Gerda and Karen helped decorate the tree, and such fun as it was! They brought out great boxes of ornaments, and twined long ropes of gold and gleaming threads of silver tinsel in and out among the stiff green branches. They hung glittering baubles upon every sprig, and at the tip of each and every branch of evergreen they set a tiny wax candle, so that when the tree was lighted it would look as if it grew in fairyland.

But not a single Christmas gift appeared in the room until after all three children had had their luncheon and gone to their rooms to dress for the afternoon festivities. Even then, none of the packages were hung upon the tree. Lieutenant Ekman and his wife sorted them out and placed them in neat piles on the table in the center of the room, stopping now and then to laugh softly at the verses which they had written for the gifts.

"Will the daylight never end!" sighed Gerda, looking out at the red and yellow sky which told that sunset was near. Then she tied a new blue ribbon on her hair and ran to help Karen.

"The postman has just left two big packages," she whispered to her friend. "I looked over the stairs and saw him give them to the maid."

"Perhaps one is for me," replied Karen. "Mother wrote that she was sending me a box."

"Come, girls," called Birger at last; "Father says it is dark enough now to light the tree." And so it was, although it was only three o'clock, for it begins to grow dark early in Stockholm, and the winter days are very short.

All the family gathered in the hall, the doors were thrown open, and a
blaze of light and color met their eyes from the sparkling, shining tree.
With a shout of joy the children skipped round and round it in a merry
Christmas dance, and even Karen hopped about with her crutch.

The cook in her white apron, and the maids in their white caps, stood in the doorway adding their chorus of "ohs!" and "ahs!" to the general excitement; and then, after a little while, the whole family gathered around the table while Herr Ekman gave out the presents.

It took a long time, as there were so many gifts for each one, and with almost every gift there was a funny rhyme to be read aloud and laughed over. But no one was in a hurry. They wondered and guessed; they peeped into every package; they admired everything.

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 smörgåsbord,—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!"