THE STORY OF THE DANISH "AHLHEDE"
SOON they were tramping past wind-tossed rye-fields and through
sweet-smelling meadows from which, every now and then, a long-legged
stork flapped its wings and flew skyward at their approach.
Their way to the boats of pretty Tul Lake,--gleaming through the trees
in the sunlight,--lay along the banks of the Gudenna River, which
has its source among the picturesque hills near Veile; then meanders
northward through ranges of hills and green fields, winding with many
a bend and curve on past old Himmelbjaerg, past Silkeborg and Randers,
finally emptying through Randers Fjord into the Kattegat.
"Are you looking for the row-boats?" came a sweet voice just behind
them. "They are just around the bend. I will show you the way."
Turning in the direction of the voice, Valdemar saw a pretty,
rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little peasant girl, in embroidered bodice and
cap, carrying a great arm-load of poppies and forget-me-nots, and,
stiltily walking along the middle of the road back of her, was a great
white, red-billed stork.
"There are the boats now," she said, pointing down a wooded bank just
ahead of them, and turning to go. Fru Ingemann offered her a small coin
with her thanks and a smile, but the proud child refused the coin with
an indignant: "_Nej tak! Ingenting! Ingenting!_"[21] and started on her
way,--the stork still following in stately tread.
"Is that your stork?" Karl couldn't help calling after her, for he
thought it awfully funny to see the big white stork following a little
girl in such friendly fashion.
"My stork? Why, no! I have no stork," laughed the merry-faced little
peasant maid. "But there is a stork's nest on the top of the white
church tower over there, and another one up on farmer Andersen's
chimney, where he placed an old wagon wheel last year for them. And
over yonder, in the eaves of the village houses, there must be several
hundred storks. They are very tame, and often follow the plough in
search of food for their nestlings, which they find in the newly-turned
earth. This is their nesting time now. Then, when fall comes, they will
fly with their little ones down to France and Egypt for the winter. But
the same storks always come back. This same one followed me about last
year. I think it knows me."
In Karl's land there were no friendly, red-legged storks stalking about
the country roads, but he had read all about them in his "Andersen's
Fairy Tales."
"Storks bring happiness and good luck," explained Valdemar, "and to
kill a stork in Denmark is a greater crime, if anything, than to kill a
fox in England."
As the boat moved out into the blue lake, through the silent reeds
and water-lilies along the shore, with its drowsy white swans, Karl
could still see in the distance the little peasant girl with her
wild-flowers, the stork in the middle of the road still keeping stately
pace with her. Then he burst out laughing at the funny sight.
Valdemar and Karl were both good oarsmen, and so they rowed far
out across the lake, then drifted lazily along, while Fru Ingemann
entertained them with one of Evald's charming fairy-tales, parts of
Öhlenschläger's delightful "Aladdin," and tales from old Danish
Saga-lore.
"Mother, won't you sing something?" begged Valdemar, who always loved
to hear his mother's beautiful voice.
"Yes, while you are both rowing back to shore, for it is growing late,"
said Fru Ingemann, as she began and sang for them one of Weyses's old
Saga-like romances.
The cool evening breezes, whispering among the trees, told them that
the long, happy day was over, and that they must catch their train back
to Aarhus at once.
Then came the day when they went by boat down the coast and sailed up
Veile Fjord, to spend two happy days at the Munkebjerg,[22] with many
a ramble through the woods, guided to and from all the loveliest views
by following the red or the yellow arrows on the trees, pausing now and
then, after a stiff climb, to rest a moment in front of some little
wooden chalet, or to sit and enjoy the scene from Atilla's Bench or
Baron Lovenskjold's Bench, if they had followed the red route, or at
Ryeholm's Bench or The Bench of the Four-Leaved Clover, when they had
followed the yellow marks.
And from Munkebjerg they had gone to Jellinge, a town perched upon
the breezy upland, and there they saw the two large, flat-topped,
heather-covered "barrows," or graves, of Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra,
of which Valdemar had been telling them, and Karl was surprised to hear
that there still remained in Zealand, alone, some thousands of these
Viking cairns, or Warrior's Hills, as they are called.
Then, as the end of their short week drew near, the children begged Fru
Ingemann to take them by motor-car to Randers, where the famous annual
Horse-Fair was being held, and they strolled through the streets of
the cheerful old town, with its quaint old houses with their slanting
roofs and protruding windows.
The Danish flag, with its sharp white cross on a blood-red field,
fluttered everywhere. Hundreds of them decorated the exhibition field,
to which the towns-folk and farmers, in their Sunday-best, swarmed,
from far and near, to hear the speeches and witness the awarding of
prizes to the superbly groomed, arch-necked horses of the famous
Jutland breed.
The children had hoped to see the peasants still wearing Hessian
boots and velvet coats covered with great silver buttons, but Fru
Ingemann told them it was fifty years too late for that. They bought
tickets--little bits of blue and white ribbon with "Randers" and the
date printed on them--to the cake-man's booth, and there they bought
all sorts of cakes fantastically made into queer-shaped men and horses
and hearts, all covered with sugar and almonds and candies, each with
a little motto on it.
Karen soon grew tired and sleepy, so they did not stay to witness
the general fun and frolic and peasant dancing at night. As they
left the grounds Karl, who was beginning to learn a few Danish
words, exclaimed at an advertisement he saw on a signboard:
_Industriforeningsbygningen_![23] "Valdemar, is all that just one
word?" he asked.
"Just one word, Karl," replied his cousin.
"As we are all to leave Monday morning for the Park, and Randers is
half-way there," said Fru Ingemann, "I have decided not to return to
Aarhus at all, but to remain here over Sunday."
No one wanted to go anywhere on Sunday, so the day was quietly passed
at home. In Monday morning's mail came a letter from Uncle Thor, asking
how soon Valdemar could start up to Skagen, and also a telegram from
Uncle Oscar, saying: "Meet me at noon, Monday, at Ribald. Pleasant
surprise for Karl."
"Oh, Aunt Else, what _can_ father's surprise be? I don't see how I
can ever wait to find out." But his aunt only advised him to be more
patient, for he would soon know.
"Tell me all about the Heath then, Aunt Else, and this Park, where we
are going," said Karl, as their train sped rapidly northward through
the low moorland hills, past clover fields where herds of fat red
Danish cattle stood separately tethered; past prosperous little farms,
some of them with their waving rye-fields, others all aglow with
yellowing grain.
"Long, long ago," began Fru Ingemann, "in the days when Grandmother
Ingemann was only a little girl, before there was any telegraphs or
telephones, the very heart of all Jutland--as large a space as the
whole island of Zealand--was just a dangerous, wild, barren desert, all
sand and peat-bogs. The few Heath-dwellers who tried to live there led
very lonely and dangerous lives. The Natmaend, a strange race of gypsy
robbers, smugglers and kidnappers, wandered there. History records many
dark tragedies enacted on the Heath. It was on Grathe Heath that young
King Valdemar the Great met and overpowered his treacherous enemy,
Svend; and, a century later, the Heath was the scene of a still grimmer
tragedy, the murder of King Erik by Marsk Stig.
"The Ahlhede, or All-Heath, as the Danes called it, had not always
been a desert-land, covered for miles with Viking barrows. There had
once been beautiful forests of spruce and oak and fir-trees stretching
over this four thousand miles of waste land. But what forests the long
droughts and merciless west winds and cold blasts from the North Sea
failed to destroy the ancient Vikings and their subjects cut down for
their ships, huts and for fuel, leaving only a great silent, desolate,
desert land. It remained thus for such ages that no one ever believed
that it could be reclaimed,--that is, no one until Captain Dalgas set
to working out his dreams and theories for conquering it. His hope
was to win back to Denmark, through the conquering of the Heath, the
territory lost through the Schlesvig-Holstein war. He formed the Heath
Society and replanted the treeless wastes.
"To-day, countless farmsteads, meadows and pastures of the Danish
peasantry dot the Heath from Germany to the Skaw. Trees again flourish;
all has been changed as if by magic, and the plough goes over more
and more acres of it every year, until a group of patriotic Danes,
like your Uncle Oscar, have taken alarm lest all the breezy stretches
of heather be reduced to farms, and none of the old-time Heath be
preserved untouched for its own natural beauty's sake."
"Uncle persuaded a lot of Danes away off in Chicago, where he lives,
to buy up a lot of the wildest and most beautiful part of it so that
Denmark might keep it forever as a Park. Isn't that it, mother?"
questioned Valdemar.
"Yes, exactly, Valdemar," replied his mother. "And, because of
the untiring efforts of a group of patriotic American Danes, like
your Uncle Oscar, a beautiful wild spot of three hundred acres up
in Northern Jutland, near Ribald, has been purchased, and will be
formally presented to the Danish government as a reservation, with the
one condition that, every year, in that spot, when Danish-Americans
cross the ocean to meet there and celebrate their Fourth of July on
Danish soil, the Stars and Stripes shall float above Denmark's sacred
_Dannebrog_. Now that everything is ready, the Park is to be formally
presented to the Danish Government."
"Presented to-day, mother?" asked Karen in surprise.
"Yes, this very afternoon. There will be a great crowd. Every steamer
for weeks past has been bringing over hundreds of Americans, and, Karl,
look out, for you may meet some of your Chicago friends among them."
"From home, Aunt Else? There's nobody I'd rather see from home than
my own mother!" said little Karl, rather wistfully. "Gee! I do wish I
could see my mother! I just wonder what daddy's 'great surprise' can
be! Oh, just look at the big crowd!"
The train had stopped. "Ribald!" sang out the conductor. In a twinkling
the car was emptied. As Fru Ingemann and her charges reached the
platform, Karl saw two waving handkerchiefs making their way through
the dense crowd towards him, and in an instant more he felt his
mother's arms around him.
"Mother! mother! I'm so glad you've come!" he cried in joy. "Daddy, you
did give me a pleasant surprise!" He laughed as Fru Ingemann and her
sister Amalia greeted each other.
"Aunt Amalia, won't you stay over here in Denmark with us all summer?"
urged Valdemar, as the happy little party was being driven rapidly on
their way to the Park.
"Yes, Valdemar,--that is, I'm going to remain until your Uncle Oscar
can get back from the United States again. That is why I have come--so
as to stay with Karl, and let him see some more of Denmark, during his
father's absence. And then I'm glad to see this wonderful Park, too, of
course."
"Why, Daddy! Must you go back to America, and leave us?" protested
Karl, who was having another surprise.
"I'm sorry, but business calls me back to Chicago at once, my little
Karl. I leave this afternoon, immediately after the festivities, but
I'll come back again soon. Here we are at the Park now."
As Mr. Hoffman, as president of the Danish-American Park, took his
place upon the speaker's platform, and began his address, welcoming
the thousands of American visitors he saw before him, back to the
Fatherland,--to the Park--_their_ Park forever,--a great cheer
arose, which was redoubled in volume as the Stars and Stripes were
impressively hoisted over the beloved _Dannebrog_--and then from a
thousand voices the Star Spangled Banner floated forth over the Danish
hills.
There were complimentary speeches by both the American and Danish
ministers, and by Crown Prince Christian. Then every one sang one of
those beautiful old national songs the Danes love so well to sing in
their woods, and Karl told Valdemar and Karen the story of the "Birth
of Old Glory,"--as the United States flag is sometimes called.
In the evening, the whole forest seemed one vast fairy-land, with
its myriad sparkling lights, strains of soft music, gay crowds and
waving flags. Multitudes of lamps, of all colors and sizes, swung from
the trees, throwing a romantic fairy-like light over the rustling
beech-trees. Torches had been stuck wherever it had been possible to
fasten them, and here and there a huge bon-fire flung its lurid glare
over the whole scene, sending up great volumes of black smoke into the
darkness overhead.
Three very tired and sleepy children were those whom Fru Ingemann put
to bed that night, even before their usual time. The happiness of the
long day--so full of new sights, surprises and excitement for Valdemar
as well as Karl--was only marred by the leave-taking of Uncle Oscar for
his long trip back to his home in far-away Chicago.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 21: "No, thank you. Nothing! nothing!"]
[Footnote 22: Monk's Mountain.]
[Footnote 23: Manufacturers and Sealers' Associations Building.]