"Go and ask her, if you like," said Mrs. Lund. "I don't believe that she will understand you. That tent has the flap turned back. Do you see that flat stone in the centre? Her dinner is cooked in a big kettle on that stone. When the meal is ready, she will dip her ladle into the kettle for her share."
"Over yonder is the summer-house of our famous seer, Swedenborg. It used to be in his garden in Stockholm, and there he worked and wrote," said Major Lund, nodding in the direction of a neat pavilion.
"We have just time before the dances to see the people who are celebrating Bellman's day," said Mrs. Lund.
Wreaths and flowers decked the bronze bust of the poet. At the foot of the pedestal a man was reciting, and the crowd was very quiet.
"How he loved to come here and lie out in the warm sun and sing those same songs that man is reciting!" said Major Lund. They lingered only a few minutes.
"This is what I like," said Sigrid, with an air of great content. She and her brothers had hurried ahead of their parents. They sat watching some lively dancing on a large platform.
"They have begun 'Weaving Homespun,'" said Erik, as the fiddler and accordion player struck up a quaint air.
The peasants faced each other in two lines. Then the men and maidens wove in and out in the figures of the dance. "Like weaving on an old loom," Erik explained to Sigrid.
"I wish I could have a red dress and a stiff white cap with pointed ears," said Sigrid, who could not keep her eyes away from one of the dancers.
"The crown princess also admires that dress," said Mrs. Lund. "She requires all her maids of honour to wear it, in the forenoon, at Tullgarn. I am sure it is so pretty, I don't believe they mind at all."