Gerda in Sweden | Page 7

one of the islands and making it his capital."
"There is an old folk-song in one of my books which always reminds me of the Vikings," said Birger.
"Let us hear it," suggested his father, and Birger repeated:--
"Brave of heart and warriors bold, Were the Swedes from time untold; Breasts for honor ever warm, Youthful strength in hero arm. Blue eyes bright Dance with light For thy dear green valleys old. North, thou giant limb of earth, With thy friendly, homely hearth."
"There is another stanza," said Gerda. "I like the second one best," and she added:--
"Song of many a thousand year Rings through wood and valley clear; Picture thou of waters wild, Yet as tears of mourning mild. To the rhyme Of past time Blend all hearts and lists each ear. Guard the songs of Swedish lore, Love and sing them evermore."
"Good," said Lieutenant Ekman; "isn't there a third stanza, Birger?"
But Birger was at the other end of the boat. "Come here, Gerda," he called. "We can see Waxholm now."
Then, as the boat slipped past the great fortress and began to thread its way in and out among the islands in the fjord, the twins stood at the rail, pointing out to each other a beautiful wooded island, a windmill, a rocky ledge, a pretty summer cottage nestling among the trees, a fisherman's hut with fishing nets hung up on poles to dry, an eagle soaring across the blue sky, or a flock of terns flying up from the rocks with their harsh, rattling cry.
There was a new and interesting sight every moment, and the sailors in their blue uniforms nodded to each other with pleasure as Gerda flitted across the deck.
"She is like a little bluebird," they said; and like a bird she chirped and twittered, singing snatches of song, and asking a hundred questions.
"I like those old fancies that the Vikings had about the sea and the sky and the winds," she said at last, stretching her arms wide and dancing from end to end of the deck. "They called the sea the 'necklace of the earth,' and the sky the 'wind-weaver.'"
"I wish I had the magic boat that Loki gave to Frey," answered Birger lazily, lying flat on his back and looking up into the "wind-weaver." "If I had it, I would sail over the whole long 'necklace of the earth,' from clasp to clasp."
But Gerda was already out of hearing. She had gone to sit beside her father and watch the course of the boat through the thousands of rocky islands that stud the coast.
"The captain says that the frost giants threw all these rocks out here when they were having a battle with old Njord, the god of the sea," she said. Then, as she caught sight of a lighthouse on a low outer ledge,--"Why, Father!" she cried, "I thought we were going to stop at every lighthouse on the coast."
"So we are, after we leave the Sk?rg?rd," replied Lieutenant Ekman. "I came down as far as this several weeks ago when the ice went out of the fjord. There are two or three months when all this water is frozen over and there can be no shipping; but as soon as the ice breaks up, the lamps are lighted in the lighthouses and I come down to see them. Now it is so light all night that for two months the lamps are not lighted at all unless there is a storm."
Gerda ran to the rail to wave her handkerchief to a little girl on the deck of a lumber vessel which they were passing.
"The lighthouse keepers have a good many vacations, don't they?" she said when she came back.
"Yes," replied her father; "those on the east coast of Sweden have several months in the winter when the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia are covered with solid ice; but on the south and west coasts the lighthouses and even the lightships are lighted all winter."
"Why is that?" questioned Birger, coming to join them.
"There is a warm current which crosses the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico and washes our western coast. It is called the Gulf Stream. This current warms the air and makes the climate milder, and it keeps the water from freezing, so that shipping is carried on all winter," Lieutenant Ekman explained.
Just then a sailor came to tell them that their dinner was ready. While they were eating, the launch made a landing at the first of the lighthouses which the inspector had to visit.
While their father was busy, the twins clambered over the rocks, hunting for starfishes and sea-urchins, and Gerda picked a bouquet of bright blossoms for their table on the boat.
At the next stopping-place, which was Gefle, the captain took them on shore to see the shipyard