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NEAR THE TOP OF THE WORLD
By
Nelle E. Moore
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON ATLANTA
SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS
Copyright, 1936, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
the permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons
Foreword
This book is intended to encourage a friendly attitude towards people of other lands. Fast steamers, airplanes, and the radio have made the people of all lands neighbors, and American boys and girls must become better acquainted with their neighbors across the seas if they are to understand and appreciate them. Through material such as is given in Near the Top of the World, children may come to know interesting and likable people of another country, and to regard them as people like themselves, not as queer or amusing.
The author traveled widely in Scandinavia for the purpose of gathering material. She watched the people, especially the children, at work and play. She visited homes, schools, libraries, farms, saeters, Lapp settlements. She talked with teachers, librarians, and other citizens of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and they assisted her generously in seeing and interpreting life in their lands.
The pictures which illustrate the stories are photographs, some of them taken by the author. For other pictures she is grateful to the American-Swedish News Exchange, New York, the Norwegian Government Railway, New York, and the Danish Government Railway, New York.
The vocabulary is simple and although the book was written for no specific grade, the sentence structure has been adapted to third grade reading. The stories were tested in third grade classrooms and revised to remove any difficulties that were encountered. The vocabulary was checked with the Gates Word List and the Thorndike Word List with the following results: 74 per cent of the words in the random sampling fall in the Gates 1500 list; 84 per cent in Thorndike’s first 2000 list, 90 per cent in Thorndike’s first 3000 list, and 94 per cent in Thorndike’s first 5000 list. Very few unusual words have been used.
The material has numerous possibilities for classroom use:
(a) As a Social Science Reader
The book will be of special service to teachers seeking material for units of study on other lands for social science classes. Curriculum makers for elementary schools have set up such units to break away from the more formal units of geography and history, but have found their attempts to be only partially successful because of the dearth of suitable reading material to put into the hands of the pupils.
(b) As Supplementary to Geography
Schools having separate courses in geography will find Near the Top of the World a valuable supplementary reader. From the story Greeting a Strange Sun to the story Planting of the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of the Earth, there are experiences to help children interpret how people make their ways of living fit the land in which they live.
(c) As Supplementary to History
In the folklore, the Viking tales, the descriptions of castles and open-air museums, the readers of Near the Top of the World see history as the background for the present-day life of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
(d) For Recreational Reading
Boys and girls, always interested in children of other lands, will find the book one to read just for fun. It will be especially liked by the children in America who are of Scandinavian origin or who have relatives in the Scandinavian countries.
In whatever way the book is used, the readers cannot fail to make interesting discoveries about the Scandinavian countries that have so generously contributed to American citizenship.
The Author
Contents
[On the Seas of the Far North]
[The Giants of the North Lands]
[In the Land of Evergreen Trees]
[How the Mountain Was Clothed]
[Through Farm Lands of Norway]
[On the Flat Farm Lands of Denmark]
[A City in the Midst of Seven Mountains]
[The Children of the North Celebrate]
[Winter Sports in the North Land]
[A Tale of a Wandering Story-teller]
[Buried Treasures of the Old Sea Kings]
[Planting the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of the Earth]
Illustrations
[Map of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark]
[How the sun seems to move around the horizon]
[This tree is farther north than any other tree in the world]
[The North Cape and the midnight sun]
[Lars and Kari on the deck of the ship]
[Birds frightened by the boat]
[The fishing boat had a good catch]
[Men with poles keep the logs moving]
[Lapps traveling with reindeer]
[A two-wheeled buggy or cariole]
[Lonely little huts in the mountains]
[A farmhouse with a thatched roof]
[The birthplace of Hans Andersen]
[Paper cutting done by Hans Andersen]
[Dolls dressed like the characters in Andersen’s stories]
[Statue of Hans Christian Andersen]
[One of the small summer homes]
[Changing the guard in front of the royal castle]
[Christmas brings skis for old and young]
[Swedish children in national costume]
[In both Norway and Sweden school children learn to ski]
[Norwegian children celebrating Independence Day]
[Martha and Nils picking berries]
[Nils helping to repair the roof]
[Nils helping the boys to build a boat]
[A swimming contest in Copenhagen]
[A room in an open-air museum]
[Another room in an open-air museum]
[The Viking ship as it was found]
[Captain Andersen’s ship, Viking, leaving Oslo]
[An old rock picture of a Viking ship]
[Treasures of the old sea-kings]
[Amundsen’s equipment, now in a museum]
STORIES OF NORWAY, SWEDEN AND DENMARK
Near the Top of the World
Children of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark live near the top of the world. Some of them dance round the Yule tree on a day as dark as night and round the Maypole on a night as light as day!
On the map of the top of the world on the next page you can find their lands.
Kari and Lars live near the top of Norway. They travel by boat. They see the fishing boats and the birds that roost on the rocky walls near the sea.
The little Lapp girl and her dog also live in that land far to the north. But to them it is the land of the reindeer. They wander from place to place. They live in tents or rude huts wherever the reindeer find food.
Olaf of Norway and Gerda of Sweden live farther to the south of those lands. To them in winter their land is a land of skis. And to many girls and boys Norway and Sweden in winter is a land of Christmas trees.
Harold lives in America, but he knows the lands near the top of the world. His grandmother lives in Norway and his cousin lives in Sweden. To Harold those lands make many a storybook tale come true. When he visited them he saw the old Viking boats which were like the boat in which Leif Ericsson sailed to America so long ago. He saw castles where boys long ago were dubbed knights.
ON THIS MAP YOU WILL FIND KARI, LARS, OLAF, GERDA, AND OTHER CHILDREN OF THE NORTH LANDS
Christian lives on the flat lands of Denmark. Denmark was the home of the great story-teller, Hans Christian Andersen.
But now turn the pages of this book and let these children, and many others too, tell you stories from that land near the top of the world.
Greeting a Strange Sun
About noon, one day late in January, a group of school children dressed in warm coats, caps, and mittens stood in the snow eagerly waiting for something. Suddenly one of the big boys pulled a rope that sent the flag to the top of its pole. There it waved a greeting as over the edge of the earth peeped the sun!
While the children watched, the rim of gold became half a round ball. Then it began to drop and in an hour no part of that ball could be seen in the sky.
Those children live in a town near the top of the world. Weeks and weeks had passed since they had seen the sun. About the time that American children were having Thanksgiving the sun had dropped from sight. There was no sunshine in that northern town on Christmas day. The children went to school through cold dark streets lighted by electricity. Then came days when there was a pale light in the sky, like the dawn that comes just before the sun rises. At last came that day in January when the sun appeared. No wonder the flag was raised to greet him!
As those children greeted the big shining ball they knew that now they would see the sun in the sky for months. Each day it would stay a little longer.
Time went on. One day about the middle of May the children saw the sun in the east early in the morning not to set again for weeks and weeks. Each day it seemed to move around the sky in a big circle near the ground. To girls and boys who live in the far north of Norway and Sweden the sun seems to go around their homes, not over them from east to west as we see it. The picture of the midnight sun shows just how the sun seems to move around low in the sky. Of course, as you know, the earth is really moving around the sun.
For many weeks the children had sunshine while they worked and while they played. No longer did they have to work in their schoolrooms by electric light. They ate their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers while the sun shone. They even had sunshine while they slept, sunshine all through the night. The sun did not set again until late in July. And in July the sun was gone from the sky only a few hours each night.
THIS PICTURE SHOWS HOW THE SUN SEEMS TO MOVE AROUND THE HORIZON
An exposure was made every 20 minutes without
changing the position of the camera
Day after day the sun was gone for a little longer time until one day in November it set again not to return until the next January.
Hammerfest, the town in which those children live, is in Norway. It is farther north than any other town in the world. It is a small town with only about six hundred homes.
The homes in Hammerfest are built of wood. Many of them are not painted and the wood has turned dark brown from the weather. Other homes are painted white, light green, pink, and blue. These colored houses are pretty with their roofs of red tile.
The streets are narrow and look very bare without trees, and few trees can grow in the cold of the far north. Hammerfest has a park with a half-dozen or more trees and just outside the town stands a lone tree—the most northern tree in the world. The school children are proud of those few trees even though they are no larger than shrubs. They point them out to the visitors who come to their town.
THIS TREE IS FARTHER NORTH THAN ANY OTHER TREE IN THE WORLD
Hammerfest faces the sea. The girls and boys of Hammerfest hurry to meet the ships that stop on their shores. They look to see what flag each ship flies. When they see the flag of a ship they are sure to know from what country it comes. They see ships with Swedish flags, ships with Danish flags, ships with Dutch flags, ships with English flags, ships with American flags, and many other ships with other flags. The boys like to watch ships unload coal, machinery, grain, and foodstuffs; and to watch other ships being loaded with fish, cod-liver oil, and hides.
THE NORTH CAPE AND THE MIDNIGHT SUN
Both the boys and the girls like to go aboard the passenger ships that visit their port. Sometimes they try to talk to the passengers. They hear many strange languages—English, Dutch, French, German, and Italian. They see people from many different countries—England, Scotland, America, Holland, France, Germany, and Italy. People from almost all over the world stop at Hammerfest on the large steamers which carry them to the very top of Norway to a big rock that sticks out into the Arctic Ocean. That rock called the North Cape is less than one hundred miles from Hammerfest. Many, many people visit the North Cape each summer at the time when the sun shines there at midnight.
During the summer the girls and boys play along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Often they find wood that has been carried in by the waves. We call such wood driftwood. When the cool evenings come driftwood is fine for burning in open fireplaces. One day some of the boys found pieces of strange wood and bark. An old sailor told them that those pieces were from the great palm trees which grow far to the south where the sun shines all the year round. It had been carried to them by the warm stream of water which also keeps their shores from freezing even in the cold winters.
Visitors who walk along the streets of that town far to the north get a strong smell of cod-liver oil. Hammerfest has a big factory where men make cod-liver oil. They take the livers from codfish and press them to get the oil. Then they put the oil in large barrels ready for ships to carry it away to other parts of Norway and to countries far away. Many girls and boys in America have tasted cod-liver oil from Hammerfest, as much of it is sold in our country.
Many of the children of Hammerfest have never seen a street-car nor a train. But they have electric lights in their homes and on their streets. Their town is too small to need street-cars and, because of the mountains and the great distances between the towns, no railroads have been built in that land so far north. But those children get their mail and packages from boats. They travel by boats too. Their boats come all the year round as regularly as trains in towns on the railroads.
Perhaps some children will think, “But surely ships cannot visit those northern shores in the winter when the sun is gone from the sky. The waters must be frozen.” But they are wrong about the northern lands near the sea. Ships come and go all the year round. Those waters are never frozen.
Those northern shores are warmed in a strange way. South of the United States of America is a body of water called the Gulf of Mexico. That body of water lies at a place on the earth where it gets warm sunshine all the year round. The water is always very warm. It is that warm water which keeps the land near the top of the earth warm.
The Gulf of Mexico seems to act in a way similar to a tank in the basement of a large house which sends water to heat the rooms far from the basement. A stream of warm water from that warm gulf is carried thousands of miles across the ocean to the shores of this northland. This is called the Gulf Stream. And the Gulf Stream keeps those shores warm enough for people to live there comfortably even during the months when no sun shines.
Some people who have traveled in many parts of the world have visited this town farther north than any other town in the world. Some of them say, “Hammerfest is not only the town which lies farthest north; it is also unlike any other town in the world.” And perhaps that is what the readers of this book are thinking too.
On the Seas of the Far North
Clang! Clang! sounded the bell of the boat. Lars and Kari hurriedly said good-bye to father and mother and ran over the narrow plank to the boat.
Lars and Kari live in Hammerfest. They were going to visit their grandmother who lives about a two-days’ ride to the south of their home.
Soon their bags were put into the cabins where they would sleep that night and they were on the deck waving their hands to their parents. Then in big comfortable chairs, they sat on the deck. It was August and the air was cool and pleasant.
Lars liked best to watch the boatmen do their work, but Kari wanted to see the land they passed. You might think that Kari could see land only to the left, for on the left is the coast of Norway, and surely there is only water on the right toward the sea. But much of the time Kari saw land on both sides. Sometimes, though, the land on the right was only huge rocks in the water, or small spots of land with water all around them where only birds live. But part of the way the pieces of land on the right were so large that Kari could not see the ends of them. They were only small islands with water all around them too. Lars and Kari were going to an island. Their grandmother lived in a town built on an island off the coast of Norway.
LARS AND KARI ON THE DECK OF THE SHIP
For a long time both Lars and Kari watched the coast of Norway on their left. For miles and miles they saw rolling banks of earth covered with shrubs of birch not even as tall as the one-story houses along the coast which were the homes of fishermen.
Soon they heard the whistle of the boat. Lars said that the whistle was blowing because they were coming to a town. They ran to the other side of the boat. By that time the boat was stopping, but it was still out in the water some distance from the town. A rowboat was coming from the town to meet the boat. The rowboat was bringing mail and packages for the large boat, and it would take back to shore the mail, packages, and passengers.
Lars and Kari had plenty of time to see the town. It was a fishing town. Fish were hanging on lines all along the bank, and more fish were stretched upon the ground to dry in the sun. The captain told Lars that the fish were herring. Perhaps some of the boxes that were loaded on the boat were boxes of herring which would be sent to America, for American merchants buy a great deal of herring from Norway.
The boat had not gone far from the fishing town when Lars saw a fishing boat. He called to Kari and together they leaned over the rail of their boat to watch the fishermen. They had never seen so many fish before. But they were soon watching the large gulls that flew along after the fishing boat. Some of the birds left the fishing boat and followed their boat. The gulls came so close that Kari almost touched one as it floated along right over her head.
Kari told the captain about the gulls that evening when they were eating supper in the dining room on the boat. The captain said, “During the night the boat will pass a mountain where thousands and thousands of birds roost on the rocks.”
“Can we see the birds from the boat?” asked Lars.
“You could see them,” replied the captain, “if you were awake, but the boat will pass that rock at three o’clock in the morning. You will be sound asleep.”
But Lars and Kari begged so hard that the captain promised to have them called when the boat was near the bird roost.
Lars and Kari didn’t want to go to bed that night. They watched the sun on the mountain peaks of the islands to their right and then back of them to the north. At ten o’clock the sun was still sending a glowing light over the water. The captain said that it would shine until about eleven that night. But Kari thought that they should go to bed at ten o’clock so that they could get a good sleep before three o’clock.
At three o’clock the steward of the boat knocked at the cabin door. Lars and Kari jumped up quickly. Each one pulled on warm stockings and shoes and coat and cap. They hurried to the deck. The sun was shining brightly again; in fact it had risen two hours earlier.
BIRDS FRIGHTENED BY THE BOAT
Suddenly the boat moved close to a rocky wall. Such a screaming of bird cries! There on the rocks were so many, many birds that they never could have counted them. And many more, frightened by the boat, were flying about in the air crying wildly.
Lars and Kari were delighted to have seen the thousands of birds at their resting place on the rocks, but they were glad to go back to bed, even though the sun was so high in the sky. And they slept until eight o’clock too.
Before noon they reached the island where their grandmother lived. A boat came from the shore to meet them. They said good-bye to the captain and the other workers on the boat and went to the shore where their grandmother was waiting for them.
Fishing Islands
Lars stayed on the island with his grandmother that winter. He went to a larger and better school than the one in Hammerfest.
At first Lars thought, “How lonely I shall be when the days are short and the nights are long.” To his surprise he found that the days with little sunshine were the busiest days on the islands. Lars was on one of the Lofoten islands where thousands of fishermen catch fish during the time of the long nights.
Late in January the fishing boats began to arrive. Before many days thousands of boats had come. The boats brought thousands and thousands of fishermen. The huts along the coast were soon opened. The quiet spots were now noisy with the chugging of boats and the voices of busy people.
Lars soon made friends with some fisher people. One old fisherman told him many things that he wanted to know about the cod, for that is the fish those fishermen came to Lofoten to catch.
FISH HUNG ON POLES TO DRY
Why did the fishermen come at this time of the year? Were there no cod in these waters in the summer? Those were questions Lars asked the old fisherman.
Lars learned that the cod were great travelers. They had come from the big Atlantic Ocean to reach the Lofoten Islands. Great numbers of cod swim together. They reach those waters of the Lofoten late in January. By the time the water is dark with the fish, the fishermen are ready to begin their fishing.
But the waters in the Lofotens get many, many more fish than those which come in from the Atlantic. It is in the waters of these islands that the cod mothers lay the eggs from which baby cod are hatched. And millions and millions of baby cod are hatched each year.
Lars watched some fishermen fastening a fishing line on the shore. The line was a strong and heavy cord. Most of the lines used by the Lofoten fishermen are five or six thousand feet long. The long fishing line is held near the top of the water by corks which will not sink. The long line is taken far out to sea by the boats. The end of the long line has a heavy weight fastened to it. That weight is dropped into the water and it holds the fishing line in the place that the fishermen want it. Short lines are fastened to each long line. The short lines have hooks upon them. More than a thousand hooks are dropped into the water from each long fishing line.
THIS FISHING BOAT HAD A GOOD CATCH
Some of the fishermen use nets instead of lines. They go out in boats to set their nets.
Each morning the fishing boats with the fishermen go out to take the fish off the hooks on the lines and to put more bait on the hooks, or to empty the fish from the nets. Lars wanted to go out in the boat with his friend, but the old fisherman said that fishing was too dangerous for a young boy like Lars.
The fishing is so dangerous that the Government of Norway sends officers to the islands every winter to help protect the fishermen. No fishing boat is allowed to leave the shore to go to the lines or nets until the officer gives the signal that the waters are safe. But in spite of the help of the officers many lives are lost in those waters each year.
One morning Lars saw the flag which was the signal of the officer that the sea was safe for the fishing boats. Then he saw the thousands of boats start out to sea to look after the lines and nets. There were rowboats, motor boats, steamboats, and sailboats. He could see the boats far off the shores for hours as the men worked to load the fish they had caught.
Five hundred fish is a good catch for a boat, but sometimes a boat brings in a thousand cod at one haul. After a few days of fishing, fish are everywhere on the islands. They hang on poles along the shore. They lie stretched on the rocks. And everywhere is the smell of fish.
Lars watched the fishermen taking the livers out of the fish and boxing them. He knew that many of the livers would be sent to Hammerfest where he lived, and there they would be made into cod-liver oil.
The Giants of the North Lands
Once upon a time very strong giants lived on the high mountains of the North lands. So fairy tales of the far north say. And according to those tales, the giants pulled up great bits of earth leaving deep hollow places between rocky walls. Water from the sea filled those hollow places, so arms of the sea ran far back into the land. And those giants also tore great rocks out of the earth and tossed them at each other in their battles. So even the tops of the mountains are rough and uneven with the holes they tore in the earth and huge rocks lie on the ground where they tossed them.
Visitors to that part of Norway called Jotunheim, which means the “Home of the Giants,” might believe that those fairy tales were true. For they see the arms of the sea running between the mountain walls and the rough land on top of the mountains. Surely none but giants’ hands could have torn the land into such shapes!
FREDRIK
But when they go to the tops of the mountains, they see some real giants like those which, long, long ago, did cut the land of Norway and Sweden and Denmark into strange forms. Those giants are sheets of ice. We call them glaciers. Before travelers in the mountains get near the large ice-sheets, they see tongues of glaciers which look like rivers of ice running down the side of the mountain.
Fredrik is a Norwegian boy who helps many travelers see a glacier. His father drives an automobile for a large hotel in the mountains. He takes the guests from the hotel to see the glacier. When Fredrik is not in school, he goes with his father. Fredrik opens the many gates. For the car must travel through lands which belong to different farmers. The gates must be kept shut so that the cattle will not stray away from their own land.
Fredrik often tells the visitors what caused those rivers of ice. Snow and sleet fell on the mountains. The cold on the high peaks kept the snow from melting away, so year after year the snow gathered there. The load of snow became heavier and heavier. The snow melted a little, then froze again, until it formed a great ice sheet which we call a glacier.
Some of the ice moved slowly down the mountain side. It formed the rivers of ice which the travelers see on the mountain slopes. But as the rivers of ice got lower down the mountain, the ice melted, but it melted very, very slowly. Little by little, only a few inches a year, the river of ice has moved back. As the ice moved down the slopes it carried under it big rocks and fine gravel. Great heaps of the rock and gravel are left behind when the ice melts. From those rocks men can tell just how far the ice moves back each year.
WALKING ON A GLACIER
Sometimes the ice melts in such a way that a cave is formed in the ice. As the sun shines on the thin walls around the cave the colors on the ice are very beautiful. The ice looks green, purple, and blue instead of white like the rest of the glacier. Some bits of the ice hang down, or stick up, like great icicles. The icicles too are bright colors in the sunshine.
Sometimes visitors to the glacier go into the cave or walk about on the ice. They do not stay long, for the ice cracks and pops and makes a great deal of noise. The visitors are always told that pieces of ice often break off the glacier and come sliding down.
Fredrik has been up to the top where the great ice-sheet lies for miles, and miles, and miles. You may be sure that Fredrik was not alone on the glacier. He went with a guide who knew where all the cracks in the ice are. Walking on a glacier is dangerous for a person who does not know the ice. The ice is most dangerous when soft snow covers the deep cracks in the ice. Then a traveler may step on some soft snow and drop several feet into the ice. But travelers say that a walk on a glacier is great sport for people who have learned how to walk there. Many travelers from different parts of the world go to Norway to climb glaciers.
Freezing and thawing made the rocks on the mountain crack and break. So after the glaciers passed, the low places between the mountains were cut deeper. Water from the sea came in to fill those low places and make the fjords.
A NORWEGIAN FJORD
So the great ice sheets were the real giants that made the sharp peaks of the mountains, the waterways, and the lakes of the north land.
Of course, much of the snow which falls on the mountains does melt and run off in streams. Sometimes the rivers flow rapidly down steep slopes. Sometimes the water tumbles over a high rocky bank and falls hundreds of feet to land below.
The people of the north lands have put some of the falls to work. For years the falling water has turned wheels that have run mills to grind grain and to saw logs. But now the water of some of the great falls has been turned into electricity. High in the mountains are large houses where the water is made into the new power. From the power-houses electricity is sent for miles and miles to light homes and to run machines in factories. Norway has no coal. The Norwegians turn the water into heat and power such as coal makes. Sometimes people in Norway call the waterfalls their “white coal.” So waterfalls are also mountain giants.
People who visit Norway and its mountains are almost sure to come away believing in giants—but not fairy-tale giants.
In the Land of Evergreen Trees
Near the Christmas season the mountain forests of Norway and Sweden become a fairyland of ice and snow. Then the forest rings with the sounds of voices and the blows of the axes of boys cutting trees that will be decorated for the Yule-tide feasts in their homes. And thousands and thousands of pretty little trees are cut at that time of the year.
Eric and Hubert are Swedish boys who live in that land of evergreen trees. Their father owns a farm in the northern part of Sweden, but he works nearly all the year round in the forests. Eric, who is twelve years old, often helps his father in the forest. Hubert is only nine, and too young to work with the trees; but he goes with his father and Eric many times to play about in the woods and to watch the others at their work.
During the winter the men cut down the big trees and saw them into logs which are easy to handle. Then Eric helps stack the logs as they fall from the saws.
But when spring comes Eric is one of the busiest workmen. The strong woodcutters load big logs on to sleds to be hauled to the river bank a mile away. Eric drives the horse which hauls his father’s logs to the river. Often Hubert rides with Eric. The boys sit on the big logs on the sled as the horse pulls them along through the snow on the mountain road.
EVERGREEN TREES IN WINTER
The logs are unloaded at the river bank. Soon the river will be flowing rapidly with much water from the melting snows from the mountains. Many farmers will then float logs in the same stream; therefore at the river bank each of Eric’s logs must be marked so that his father can claim them at the end of the waterway. Sometimes Hubert stays by the river bank to watch the men who work for his father place his father’s mark on each of the logs. The mark is the initials E. K. in a circle.
The boys enjoy seeing the logs go tumbling down the swift-flowing rivers. They have often stopped at a spot below where the river spreads out into a lake. When the logs reach that spot they stack in the water. Men then go along with poles to keep the logs moving. Sometimes there are acres and acres of logs in the lakes of Sweden at one time.
The Swedish and Norwegian people make many things of wood—their ships, their houses, their furniture, their bridges, their telephone poles, and many, many other things. But many of the logs which are floated down the river from that mountain forest where Eric works are made into paper.
Eric and Hubert have been to the factory which stands near the bank of the waterway which carries their logs. Thousands of men work there. They put the logs through a mill which grinds them into coarse fibers. Those shreds are then mixed with water and chemicals to make a pulp. The pulp is pressed under heavy rollers and dried to make sheets of paper—newspaper, writing paper, wrapping paper, and cardboard.
One day when Hubert was lighting a fire with a safety match, his father told him that the wood of the match had come from the big trees of the forests too. A Swedish man found the way to make safety matches. And Sweden was the first country to make the matches that will not catch fire unless the head of the match is scratched on a certain kind of rough paper. He told Hubert, too, that safety matches from Sweden are used all over the world.
In the school which Eric and Hubert attend the boys are taught to plant trees. And every spring they plant little trees to take the places of the big trees which the woodmen have cut down.
The school boys learn that about one fourth of Norway’s land and about one half of Sweden’s land are covered with trees. But they are taught too that the people can use up the supply of trees that Nature has given them. So they help obey the laws of their country which require that trees be planted to keep the forests from being destroyed.
MEN WITH POLES KEEP THE LOGS MOVING
How the Mountain Was Clothed
A Norwegian story-teller wrote a story “How the Mountain Was Clothed.” This is his story:
Through a deep cut between two mountains, a river hurried down over the rocks. The mountain walls on either side were high and steep. But one side of the mountain was bare. But at the foot even of this side, and so near the river that it was bathed in its spray, stood a cluster of trees. They gazed upward and outward, but they could not move one way or another.
“Suppose we clothe the mountain,” said the juniper to the fir.
The fir looked up at the naked mountainside and replied, “If any body is to do it, I suppose it will have to be we.”
The fir looked over toward the birch and asked, “What do you think, Birch?”
The birch glanced up the bare mountainside. The wall leaned over so that it seemed to the birch as if it could scarcely breathe. “Yes, indeed, let us clothe it,” he said.
So the three took upon themselves the task to clothe the bare mountain. That was their goal, and they soon set out to see whether they could reach that goal. The juniper went first.
When they had gone but a little way, they met the heather. The juniper seemed to want to pass it by. “No, take it along,” said the fir. So the heather joined them.
Before long the juniper began to slip, “Take hold of me,” said the heather. The juniper did so, and whenever the smallest crack could be seen, the heather put its finger into it. Wherever the heather had first pried in a finger, the juniper put a whole hand. They crawled and crept, the fir working hard, the birch always behind the rest.
“This is a noble work,” said the birch.
The mountain began to wonder what kind of creatures these might be that came clambering up its side. And after it had thought the matter over for a hundred years or two it sent a little brooklet down to find out. As it happened, the brook went at the time of the spring floods. It crept down till it met the heather. “Dear, dear heather,” said the brook, “won’t you let me pass? I am so tiny.” The heather was very busy, so merely raised itself a bit, and worked on. The brooklet slipped in underneath and away.
“Dear, dear juniper, won’t you let me pass? I am so very little.” The juniper eyed it severely, but since the heather had let the brook slip by, the juniper might do that too.
The brook raced on down the hill, and came to where the fir stood puffing, out of breath, on the hillside. “Dear, dear fir, won’t you let me by?” begged the brook, “I am so very small,” and kissed the fir on the foot, and smiled. The fir let it by.
And the birch made way for the brook, even before it was asked.
“Hi, hi, hi!” said the brook and grew. “Ha, ha, ha!” said the brook and grew larger. “Ho, ho, ho!” said the brook, and tore up the heather, the juniper, the fir, and the birch by their roots and flung them pell mell, head o’er heels, down the steep slope of the mountain.
The mountain sat for several hundred years after that and smiled at the memory of that day. It was plain to be seen: The mountain did not want to be clothed.
The heather fretted and worried until it grew green again, and then it set forth once more. “Courage!” said the heather.
The juniper half raised itself to get a good look at the heather. So long did it sit half raised that at last it sat upright. It scratched its head, set forth again, and dug in so hard for a foothold that it seemed surely the mountain must feel it. “If you won’t have me, then I will have you.”
The fir stretched its toes a bit to see if they were all right, raised first one foot and then the other, and finally both feet at once. It first looked to see where it had climbed, next where it had been lying, and finally where it was to go. It then went on its way, pretending it had never fallen.
The birch, which had soiled itself badly, got up and brushed itself off. Away they went, faster than ever, to the sides and straight up, in sunshine and in rain.
“What can all this mean?” asked the mountain, one fair day, all glittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down upon it, the birds sang, the hare hopped about, and the woodmouse piped.
The day finally came when the heather could peep over the top with one eye. “Oh dear, oh dear!” said the heather, and away it went.
“Dear me,” said the juniper, “what is it the heather sees?” and just managed to reach high enough to peer over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” it exclaimed and was off.
“What is it the juniper’s up to today?” the fir wondered, taking longer steps in the heat of the sun. Before long it rose on its toes and peered over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” Its branches and needles rose straight up on end.
“What is it all the others see and I don’t?” the birch asked, as it carefully lifted its skirts, and tripped after them. “Oh—oh—! If there isn’t a huge forest of fir and heather and juniper and birch already on the other side of the mountain waiting for us!” it exclaimed. The glittering dew rolled off its leaves as it quivered in the sunshine.
“Ah, that’s what it means to reach our goal!” said the juniper.
(Adapted.)
“Björnstjerne Björnson,” from Norway’s Best
Stories, published by American-Scandinavian
Foundation, New York.
Reindeer Land
Reindeer land! Surely the land of the far, far north in Norway and Sweden may be called reindeer land.
One man who traveled in that land tells of a strange sight he saw there. On snow ahead of him one day he saw something moving. It looked as if thousands of hares were playing in the snow. They seemed to jump, or leap, into the air and to come down in the same spot. But why should so many hares be there? And why did they move so strangely? The man went closer, and found that his hares were reindeer tails! Yes, just tails! And thousands of them! The bodies of the reindeer were buried in the snow and just the stubby tails stuck out. The reindeer had dug into the snow, throwing up a bank which hid their bodies from sight. They were eating the moss which they found under the snow and happily wagging their tails as they ate.
The reindeer are about the only animals that can get a living in those mountains where little grows except moss. And the people, called Lapps, who roam about with them get their living from the reindeer.
The Lapps are small people. The men and women are not much taller than most ten-year-old boys and girls. They have yellow skin, blue or gray eyes, and brown hair. They dress in the skins of the animals or in coarse cloth. They look very much like the Eskimos.
The word Lapps means people at land’s end. And that part of Norway and Sweden which lies at their very tops is called Lapland. Most of the Lapps wander about, following the reindeer. Wherever the reindeer find plenty of moss, the Lapps pitch their skin tents, or build themselves a hut of sod covered with brush. In those huts they and their wolf-like dogs live until the reindeer begin to wander farther away.
The Lapps and their dogs sleep together in the huts on beds which are heaps of brush covered with reindeer skins. Getting ready for bed is a simple task for these people. They merely take off their moccasins and lie down to sleep in their clothes. They wear the same clothes, too, for months and months and very seldom take a bath.
A kettle of reindeer meat is always boiling over coals on rocks in the center of the hut. The Lapps get food from the kettle whenever they feel hungry and eat it with spoons made of reindeer horn from rude bowls or plates of wood or bone.
LAPPS TRAVELING WITH REINDEER
Day and night some Lapp and his dogs watch the herd of reindeer as they wander on the mountains. A few reindeer are kept near the hut to furnish milk for the camp.
The reindeer not only furnish the skins for clothes and covers and milk and meat for food, they are also the Lapps’ horses. The Lapp children like to go sleigh riding behind a reindeer. But sometimes the ride is rough. The children may be thrown out into the snow. The reindeer wears but little harness, so the driver cannot hold him if he cares to run.
Several families of Lapps go every summer from Sweden across a body of water to a place in Norway where the moss on the mountains is very good. The reindeer swim across the water. The Lapps go in boats and join the reindeer on the other side.
One Lapp family that crosses the water from Sweden has built a hut of timber for its summer home in Norway. It is no larger than the skin or sod huts. Both the mother and the father have to stoop to enter the house. But the little Lapp girl and her dogs can run in and out easily.
But, even though the Lapps move about from place to place, the Lapp girls and boys go to school. The law of Sweden requires these children to go to school for six years. They begin their lessons when they are seven years old and go to school until they are thirteen. Each settlement has its own school. The schoolhouse is just another Lapp hut. In the summer the children study their lessons sitting on the ground in front of or in the hut. The teacher lives in the hut and moves when the camp moves. Many of the teachers are Lapps who have been educated to teach; but some of the teachers are Swedes or Norwegians.
A LAPP HUT