"Yes, my son, I have often thought so. This pole is not more than fifty feet high. I have seen them twice as tall. But if we are going to cover all these cross-bars with birch boughs and wreaths, we must hitch up old Maja and drive into the woods soon."
"Indeed, you must," said Mrs. Lund, as she hurried across the lawn with a huge wreath of daisies over her arm and a basket of nodding bluebells. "You will find us under that clump of beeches, making our wreaths, when you return. Oh! there is plenty for every one to do before the pole is trimmed for to-night."
"Mother, you do make wreaths so fast," said Sigrid. She was sitting in the midst of a group of friends and relatives, who had gathered at grandmother's to celebrate Midsummer's Eve and the day following. As she talked, she sorted daisies, or "priests'-ruffs," as she called them, into bunches for her mother.
"Just hand me a clump of those white daisies, so I can tie their long stems to this rope, and you will soon see how I do it," said Mrs. Lund.
"To-night will be the longest of the whole year," said Miss Eklund, while her fingers plaited birch leaves. "How I love these long days of sunshine! Why, last night I read in my room without a lamp till almost eleven o'clock!"
"Please tell Karin and me about how you made pancakes on Midsummer's Eve when you were a little girl, Miss Eklund," begged Sigrid, who, with her cousin, was sitting near the governess.
"Oh! the young girls out in the country where I used to live will have a merry time of it to-night. I wonder if they still make pancakes. I was about sixteen years old the night I tried it with two other girls, for the charm would not work unless there were three. Together we took the bowl from the cupboard, beat the eggs, and added the flour. All three of us stirred it at once and threw in the salt at the same time. Of course, we got in too much salt. Not one of us must speak or laugh the whole time. That was the hardest of all. Dear me, I hadn't thought of that night for years." Miss Eklund delayed her tale to laugh as heartily as if she was making up for lost time.
"After we had poured out the batter and cooked it, each of us ate a third of the very salt cake. But we couldn't drink before we went to bed. During our dreams, the older girls told us that a young man would appear to each of us and offer us a glass of water."
Karin interrupted the story by exclaiming, "What is that coming down the road? I believe it is the boys with our green boughs. Old Maja doesn't look as though he liked those branches thrust behind his ears. Why, the wagon is all one bower of birch-trees!"
As the wagon drove into the yard, Erik spied his newly-arrived cousin and sung out: