Mrs. Edgecombe was dismayed, when she found that not one window in the whole apartment would open wide enough to let in the crisp cold air.
Her feeling of horror was slight, however, compared to Stena’s when she discovered that the new foreign mistress had torn off the paper and had a storm window removed from each one of the sleeping-rooms. When she found that the Americans slept all night with their windows wide open, the horror of the little maid knew no bounds. She predicted that they would all die within a month and was so distressed that Mrs. Edgecombe, who despaired of ever making her understand in the few words of Swedish and English which each could speak, explained the situation to Fru Bjerkander and asked her to tell Stena that they always slept with their windows open at home.
Much to their amusement, however, pretty, cultured Fru Bjerkander seemed almost as horrified as the little maid. They found, in visiting her house, that she too had the national hatred of a draught and that all the windows of her pretty home were tightly sealed.
Since she could not keep the windows closed, Stena seemed resolved to try and overcome the evil by keeping the rest of the house as warm as possible. Every morning, when they awoke, they found that the wood fire in the great porcelain stove in the living-room had been so carefully tended that there was already a bed of glowing coals in the oven-like opening at the base. The children liked to hurry out from their frosty bedrooms and finish dressing by the great white stove, while the rosy glow from the fire seemed very cheerful on those dark mornings when they had to breakfast by lamplight.
Mrs. Edgecombe had feared that so much darkness would be depressing and, as the days grew shorter until, at length, it was necessary to light the lamps before three o’clock in the afternoon, she wondered if the children would not get homesick.
But they were too much interested in the new sights and experiences to get lonely. Indeed, it seemed to them that the long, long evenings were not half long enough for the work they had to do. They were both busily engaged in finishing Christmas presents for the dear ones at home, for they realized that it would take many days for their packages to travel to America.
So the days grew shorter and shorter and the nights grew longer and longer as the month of December advanced and all Upsala was filled with preparations for the joyous Jul-tide. The Edgecombe household was no exception for Stena had insisted that the apartment must be thoroughly cleaned before the great festival.
Mrs. Edgecombe could not quite see the necessity for such wholesale cleaning, since they had lived there less than six weeks and Stena was always polishing and scouring. But the little maid was so distressed at the thought of not cleaning that Mrs. Edgecombe let her have her way and the rooms were turned topsy-turvy while Stena swept, dusted and beat furniture to her heart’s content.
Professor Edgecombe declared that it was worse than spring house-cleaning in America, for every house he passed in his daily walk to and from the University showed signs of the same upheaval.
One morning, Stena told Mrs. Edgecombe that she was ready for the chimney-sweep and if Mrs. Edgecombe were willing, she had a little cousin who was making his living in that way and whom she would like to employ. Mrs. Edgecombe had expected this request, for she had heard that another strict precaution against fire in all Swedish cities was the law requiring that all chimneys should be swept clean very frequently.