CHAPTER II
COPENHAGEN
Summer bursts suddenly in Copenhagen. First, winter, with its deep snows, its fogs and frosts and thaws; then a few days of showers and a few of sunshine, Blinkeveir[10] the Danes call this showery weather; and then, all at once, the bare trees throw out their tender green foliage and the spring flowers burst into life! The long cold winter is over. Even then, there sometimes come dense sea-mists which envelop Denmark's capital, and only vanish with the sun's warm rays. So Copenhageners have a popular weather saying:
"'Monday's weather till mid-day is the week's weather till Friday,
Friday's weather is Sunday's weather,
Saturday has its own weather."
Saturday's weather fortunately proved ideal, a rare June day. Copenhagen's beautiful Public Gardens and Parks were all aglow with fragrant, blossoming spring flowers. Valdemar's school was at last over.
"Now to the woods!" he cried in joy. "And, mother dear, can't we keep Cousin Karl all summer with us up at our country place on the Strandvej,[11] while Uncle Oscar has to be away in Jutland attending to that Park of his? But I should like to be there with him when they have their big American Fourth of July celebration, and see them raise their great Star Spangled Banner over our beloved flag! Wouldn't you, Karl? I've heard about the American 'Fourth,' with the Stars and Stripes waving everywhere, and of the army manœuvres and big times they have over there in the States on that historic day! But Denmark's never had anything like it before, has she, Uncle Thor?"
They were in Fru Ingemann's pretty dining-room having their twelve o'clock little frokost of tea and smörrebröd, this happy little party of six, for the American relatives had arrived.
Early that morning, Valdemar and his Uncle Thor had hurried to the dock to meet the steamer, "and, but for Uncle Oscar's waving handkerchief, and his good memory for faces, we might have missed them entirely," explained Valdemar, who was delighted with this first acquaintance with his new American cousin.
With the first warm spring day, half of Copenhagen whitewashes her town house windows against the sun's hot rays, and prepares to migrate farther north, to the famous Strandvej, where soft breezes from the blue Sound play all day over the broad sandy beach, and rustle through the leaves of the beech-trees in the Deer Park near by. Rich and poor alike own their own villas, country houses or little cottages, as the case may be, and these thickly dot the beautiful east Sound Shore all the way from Copenhagen to Elsinore, for great is the Dane's love of at ligger på Landet.[12]