"'Gustav Eriksson Vasa, while in exile and wandering in Dalarne with a view of stirring up the people to fight for Fatherland and Freedom, was saved by the presence of mind of a Dalecarlian woman, and so escaped the troops sent by the Tyrant to arrest him.
"'This monument is gratefully erected by the Swedish people to the
Liberator.'"
Karen laughed. "How can you remember it so well?" she asked. "It sounded as if you were reading it."
"That is because I have read it so often," replied Birger. "Gustav Vasa is my favorite hero. He drove the Danes out of the country and won freedom for the Swedish people."
"He was the Father of his Country," said Gerda, and she seized Birger's new flag and waved it over her head.
"Come, children, it is time for you to go to school," Fru Ekman told them; and soon Karen was trudging off to her gymnastic exercises, and the twins were clattering down the stairs with their books.
"That was a good song that Mother was singing this morning," Birger told his sister. "I'd like to wear spurs on my feet. How they would rattle over these stone pavements!"
"I'd rather have 'a crown so bright and splendid,'" said Gerda; "but I'll have to be contented with my cooking-cap to-day instead." Then she bade her brother good-bye and ran up the steps of the school-house, where, after her morning lessons, she would spend an hour in the cooking-class.
At five o'clock the three children were all at home again, and dressed for the party which the twins had every year on their birthday.
"It is time the girls and boys were here," said Gerda, standing before the mirror in the living-room to fasten a pink rose in the knot of ribbon at her throat.