A VISIT TO SKANSEN
"I WANT to see the Lapps and the reindeer. Aren't we almost there?"
said Anders to his mother.
"Yes, little son, we are nearly at the top of the hill," replied Mrs.
Lund.
The Lund family were on their way to Skansen, a famous park near
Stockholm. Soon the car stopped and every one scrambled out.
"We are so high up that we can see the harbour," said Erik, as he
trudged along beside his sister with one of the luncheon baskets
hung over his arm. At their feet lay the city of islands with its
ribbon-like canals of blue. Away on the horizon, the water of the bay
sparkled in the sun, like a huge amethyst. The children halted a
minute to look back on the fair scene.
"Out there the Vikings sailed away to new lands," said Erik, who was
never weary of dreaming about the heroes of the old sagas.
"Hurry up, children," called Mrs. Lund. "We have too much before us to
see, to spend time looking back."
Through the entrance gate, they passed into a grove of pines and
birches, with winding roads. Among the trees were many wild animals in
pens, and queer houses and buildings, such as the children had never
seen in the city or at grandmother's. Every few steps, they met a
soldier with a helmet and shield, or a brightly dressed peasant. You
would think you had come to a foreign country, and so did Sigrid.
As they turned a bend in the road, they saw a low cottage of hewn
timber. It was painted red and had a hood over the door. In the yard
was a wagon that might have been made by sawing a huge wooden cask from
top to bottom, and then placing one half on wheels.
"I never saw such a funny cart," said Anders.
"It is odd," replied his father. "A long time ago, people used to ride
in a wagon like that. Suppose we go over and look at that house."
"You don't know the people who live there, do you, father?" enquired
Sigrid.
"No, my daughter," he replied. "But all these people are accustomed
to visitors. You see, a few years ago, there lived a wise man named
Artur Hazelius, who loved his country very dearly. He travelled from
the fjelds and glaciers where the Lapps live to the fertile fields of
Skäne, in the south.
"Something troubled him very much. He cared a great deal for the queer
old homes which he saw in out-of-the-way villages. No one makes such
houses to-day. He knew they would soon be destroyed. Then he was sorry
that only a few peasants still wear their old gay costumes.
"So he said to himself, 'I will go to the king and ask him to give me a
large park. There I will fetch some of these houses. Our children will
not have to read in books about the way their great-grandfathers lived.
They shall visit the very houses they lived in.'"
"How could he bring a whole house here?" asked Erik.
"That was hard sometimes," Major Lund replied. "Often they pulled down
a house, brought the timber here, and set it up as it was before. Then
he had people come here and wear the same clothes and live in the same
way they did in the olden times. Nowhere in the world is there a park
like this."
"See that little girl with a kerchief over her head, peeping at us from
the window," said Anders.
A moment later, a smiling peasant woman came to the door. She made a
curtsey and invited them to enter.
"Why, I can scarcely see at all," said Sigrid.
The big living-room was lighted by the tiniest little window. The
two sleeping-rooms were also as dark as your pocket, and very small.
Hemlock tips were strewn over the clean floor. From the ceiling hung a
pole of flat rye bread.
"You dear baby!" exclaimed Sigrid's mother, for she had discovered a
small canvas hammock hung in a dark corner. The baby was asleep in its
hanging nest.
"She is a very good child and lies there all day by herself," said the
baby's mother.
"They never can move their beds at all," said Sigrid, who was making
a tour about the room. She peered curiously between some striped
hand-woven curtains which hung in front of a wooden bed, built into the
house. Similar beds lined the walls.
"Many of the peasants use that kind of bed," said Major Lund. "Once,
when I was in Lapland, I slept in a big drawer."
"Was that the time that you were snowed in and you climbed out through
the chimney to dig a path?" asked Erik.
"Yes, that was the same time," said his father.
"I should think you would have smothered in the drawer," said Anders,
who had been very quiet.
"There was no danger of that," replied Major Lund. "All around the
rooms were wooden sofas. At night, you pulled out a big drawer beneath
the seat. The drawer was filled with hay, and over that you spread
blankets."
Mrs. Lund talked to the peasant woman while the children continued to
look about. A huge fireplace filled one corner of the room. On a low
brick platform that came out into the room, the fire was built.
Across another corner a rope was stretched. Over it hung dresses and
coats.
"What do they do that for?" whispered Sigrid to her mother.
"They haven't any closet for their dresses except that," replied Mrs.
Lund.
For a moment or two, after they came out of the gloomy interior, the
sun was dazzling. They ate dinner under some pine-trees, and then kept
on through the woods.
"We haven't time to visit all these houses. But you would like to see
the hut half-buried in the ground. The herdsmen live in such places in
summer while they are tending their cattle. And we won't forget the
Lapps, Anders," said the father, gently tweaking his son's ear.
"Who are all those people in that carriage?" asked Mrs. Lund.
"I had almost forgotten that this is Bellman's day. Those people live
here. They always dress in the costume of the time of our beloved poet
on his anniversary day."
An old carryall drove slowly past. Within were several men dressed in
black velvet coats and knee-breeches, white wigs, and three-cornered
hats.
"Later in the day, we will walk over to Bellman's statue, where I am
sure we shall find many people."
"I see the reindeer," exclaimed Anders. "There they are on those high
rocks."
Before them stretched the group of Laplander tents of birch poles
covered with canvas.
"That dark-skinned girl playing with the dog looks about my age. I
wonder what she does with the wooden spoon which hangs from her belt,"
said Sigrid.
"Go and ask her, if you like," said Mrs. Lund. "I don't believe that
she will understand you. That tent has the flap turned back. Do you see
that flat stone in the centre? Her dinner is cooked in a big kettle on
that stone. When the meal is ready, she will dip her ladle into the
kettle for her share."
"Over yonder is the summer-house of our famous seer, Swedenborg. It
used to be in his garden in Stockholm, and there he worked and wrote,"
said Major Lund, nodding in the direction of a neat pavilion.
"We have just time before the dances to see the people who are
celebrating Bellman's day," said Mrs. Lund.
Wreaths and flowers decked the bronze bust of the poet. At the foot of
the pedestal a man was reciting, and the crowd was very quiet.
"How he loved to come here and lie out in the warm sun and sing those
same songs that man is reciting!" said Major Lund. They lingered only
a few minutes.
"This is what I like," said Sigrid, with an air of great content. She
and her brothers had hurried ahead of their parents. They sat watching
some lively dancing on a large platform.
"They have begun 'Weaving Homespun,'" said Erik, as the fiddler and
accordion player struck up a quaint air.
The peasants faced each other in two lines. Then the men and maidens
wove in and out in the figures of the dance. "Like weaving on an old
loom," Erik explained to Sigrid.
"I wish I could have a red dress and a stiff white cap with pointed
ears," said Sigrid, who could not keep her eyes away from one of the
dancers.
"The crown princess also admires that dress," said Mrs. Lund. "She
requires all her maids of honour to wear it, in the forenoon, at
Tullgarn. I am sure it is so pretty, I don't believe they mind at all."
"No two of those girls are dressed alike," continued Sigrid, who was
still interested in costumes.
"That is because each maid wears the peasant dress of one of the
provinces of Sweden, and there are many provinces. One of those
Dalecarlian girls has a dress like the one you wore on Midsummer's Eve.
In that part of the country, the girls wear their bright aprons and
kerchiefs more than anywhere else in Sweden."
"Why, where is Anders?" asked Major Lund. He had been chatting with an
old friend and had just returned to his family.
Sure enough, the lad had disappeared. The crowd had pressed in
close about the platform. Every one was so pleased with these old
folk-dances, that they had forgotten the child.
"Do you suppose he has gone back to look at the seals or the polar
bears?" asked Erik.
It was sometime before Major Lund returned from his hunt. But Anders
was with him.
"Where do you think I found the rogue?" asked Major Lund. "He was
drinking raspberry juice with a nice old lady who thought he was lost.
Do you know what happens to little boys who run away?"
Major Lund looked very stern. But the mother was so glad to find the
child that I don't believe anything did happen.