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.