ON BOARD THE "NORTH STAR"
It was a sunny morning in late June. The waters of the Saltsjö rippled
and sparkled around the islands of Stockholm, and little steamers puffed
briskly about in the harbor. The tide had turned, and the fresh water of
the lake, mingled with the salt water of the fjord, was swirling and
eddying under the bridges and beating against the stone quays; for Lake
Mälar is only eighteen inches higher than the Salt Sea, and while the
incoming tide brings salt water up the river from the ocean, the outgoing
tide carries fresh water down from the lake.
Just as the great clock in the church tower began chiming the hour of
nine, a group of children gathered on the granite pier opposite the
King's Palace.
A busy scene greeted their eyes. Vessels were being loaded and unloaded,
passengers were arriving, men were hurrying to and fro, and boys selling
newspapers were rushing about in the crowd.
"Do you see the _North Star_?" Sigrid asked the others. "That is the name
of the boat they are going to take."
"There it is!" cried Oscar; "and there are Gerda and Birger on the deck."
With a merry shout of greeting he ran on board the steam launch, followed
by all the other girls and boys.
"Oh, Gerda, how I wish I were going with you," said Hilma wistfully. "I
should love to cross the Arctic Circle and see the sun shining all night
long."
Gerda, who was wearing a pretty blue travelling dress, with blue ribbons
on her hat and in her hair, threw her arms around her friend. "I wish
you were going, too," she answered. "Birger is the best brother any girl
could have; but he isn't like a sister, and that is what you are to me,
Hilma."
At the same moment, Birger was confiding to his friend, "I wish you were
going with us, Oscar. Gerda is a good sister; but she isn't like a
brother."
All the other boys and girls were talking and laughing together, telling
of the strange sights that Birger and Gerda would see on their trip into
Lapland; and what they would do if only they were going, too.
Suddenly a warning whistle from the steamer sent them hurrying back to
the quay, where they stood waving their handkerchiefs and shouting good
wishes until the twins were out of sight.
The vessel's course lay first between two islands, and Gerda lifted her
eyes to the windows of the King's Palace, which stood near the quay of
one; but Birger found more to interest him in the military and naval
buildings on the other.
"There is a ship from Liverpool, England," said Lieutenant Ekman,
pointing to a vessel which was lying beside the quay in front of the
palace.
"It is hard to believe that we are forty miles from the ocean when we see
such big ships in our harbor," said Birger. "How did it happen that
Stockholm was built so far from the open sea? It would be easier for all
these vessels if they didn't have to come sailing up among all the
islands to find a landing-place."
"Lake Mälar was the stronghold of the ancient Viking warriors," replied
his father; "and it was just because there were forty miles of difficult
sailing among narrow channels, that they chose to live at the head of the
Saltsjö, and make this fjord their thoroughfare in going out to the
Baltic Sea."
"Did they like to make things as hard as possible for themselves?" asked
Gerda with interest.
"Not so much as they liked to make it as hard as possible for their
enemies," said Herr Ekman. "Centuries ago, hunters and fishermen built
their rude huts on the wooded islands at the outlet of Mälar Lake. They
often found it convenient to slip away from their pursuers among these
islands; but they were not always successful, for their settlements on
the site of the present city were repeatedly destroyed by hostile
tribes."
"Why didn't they build fortifications on the islands and hold the enemy
at bay?" questioned Birger.
"They were too busy sailing off to foreign lands," answered his father.
"Fleet after fleet of Viking ships sailed out of the bays of Sweden,
manned by the bravest sailors the world has ever known; and they swooped
down upon the tribes of Europe, fighting and conquering them with the
strength of giants and the glee of children."
"It was Birger Jarl who built the first walls and towers to protect the
city," spoke Gerda. "I remember learning it in my history lesson."
"Yes," her father replied; "good old Earl Birger, who ruled the Swedes in
the thirteenth century, saw how important such fortifications would be,
and so he locked up the Mälar Lake from hostile fleets by building walls
and towers around 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 Skärgård," 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 where his own launch, the _North Star,_ was
built; and so, all day long, there was something to keep them busy.
As the boat steamed farther north, each new day grew longer, each night
shorter, until Birger declared that he believed the sun did not set at
all.
"Oh, yes it does," his father told him. "It sets now at about eleven
o'clock, and rises a little after one. You will have to wait until you
cross the Polcirkel and get to the top of Mount Dundret before you have a
night when the sun doesn't even dip below the horizon."
"We must be pretty near the Arctic Circle now," exclaimed Gerda. "It is
growing colder and colder every minute."
"That is because the wind is blowing over an ice-floe," said her father,
pointing to a large field of ice which seemed to be drifting slowly
toward them.
"Look, look, Birger!" cried Gerda, "there are some seals on the ice."
"Yes," said Birger, "and there is a seal-boat sailing up to catch them."
"I'm going to draw a picture of it for Mother," Gerda announced, and she
sat still for a long time, making first one sketch and then another,--a
seal on a cake of ice, a lighthouse, a ship being dashed against the
rocks, and a steam-launch cutting through the water, with a boy and girl
on its deck.
"Oh dear!" she sighed after a while, "I wish something _enormous_ would
happen. I'm tired of water and sky and sawmills and little towns with red
houses just like the pictures in my geography."
"What would you like to have happen?" questioned her father.
"I should like to see some of my girl friends," replied Gerda quickly. "I
haven't had any one to tell my secrets to for over a week."
"Perhaps something enormous will happen tomorrow," her father comforted
her. "We'll see what we can do about it."
So Gerda went to sleep that night thinking of Hilma and Sigrid at home;
and she slept through the beautiful bright summer night, little dreaming
that the boat was bearing her steadily toward a new friend and a dearer
friendship than any she had ever known.