From the deck of a boat nearing Norway, Harold, an eight-year-old
American boy, watched the rocky shores. Harold’s father too was watching
those shores. He was eagerly looking for familiar sights in the town
where he had been born.
Harold was going with his father and mother to visit his grandmother who
lives in Norway. She lives in the very same home in which Harold’s
father had lived when a boy.
Harold had crossed the Atlantic on one of the big steamships that carry
travelers from the United States to countries across the seas. He had
left that steamship at a port in England. After a day’s ride on a train,
he had boarded another boat to cross the North Sea to Norway.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF BERGEN]
In a few hours after the shores of Norway came into sight, Harold saw
the buildings of a town built in the midst of mountains. His father told
him his grandmother lived in that town. It was Bergen (bear gen) which
is surrounded by seven mountains. The houses of the town were all along
the side of one of the big mountains and along the lower banks of the
sea. Harold’s father was as happy as a boy to see again the red-tiled
roofs of those houses among the green trees of the mountain slope.
The sun was shining when the boat pulled into dock at Bergen, but the
captain told Harold to have his raincoat, rubbers, and umbrella handy,
as rain might fall any minute. He said, “A year has three hundred and
sixty-five days and rain falls in Bergen on three hundred and sixty
days. That leaves only five clear days for Bergen in a year.”
Harold’s father said that rain did not fall quite so often as the
captain said. But he told Harold that records show Bergen’s rainfall to
be six times as much as the rainfall in the town where Harold lives. And
Harold’s town gets enough rain each year to keep the grass green and to
make the plants grow well.
Harold stopped along the water front to see the fishing boats which were
standing there. Men and women were selling fish from more than a hundred
boats and from stands along the street near the boats. They sold cod,
herring, and halibut. Harold’s father said, “Bergen is the largest
fishing market in the world. The fish are brought to Bergen in boats
which fish far to the north of Bergen in the waters of the Arctic.”
But they hurried away to grandmother’s house. Harold was eager to see
the grandmother whom he had never seen. Grandmother was eagerly waiting
for her visitors too. She showed Harold a room which was to be his room
for the summer.
The room was small. Both the walls and the floor were painted light
brown. A small bed of wood stood in one corner. Over the clean white
sheets, Harold found a soft quilt. The quilt was so fluffy and thick
that Harold thought it must be a small feather bed. His grandmother said
that the quilt was stuffed with down taken from the nests of eider
ducks.
Harold enjoyed the warm cover each night, for even in summer the nights
in Bergen are cool. But that soft quilt was hard to keep in place, no
matter how carefully it was tucked in.
A tall narrow stove stood in one corner of the room. Harold did not need
a fire, but he found a box of wood beside the stove ready for a fire
when the cold days came.
In a few days, Harold knew his way around the old city of Bergen.
Sometimes he walked along narrow streets between rows of wooden houses.
Some of the houses are very, very old—even more than six hundred years
old.
Some of the shops which Harold passed were on wide streets. Both the
shops and the streets look much like shops and streets in American
towns. Of course some shops sold raincoats, umbrellas, and rubbers.
Other shops sold articles which the Norwegians think visitors from other
lands will like. On the walls of those old shops hang bright-colored
rugs woven on a hand loom. One day Harold saw girls dressed in old
Norwegian costumes weaving a rug.
Harold bought a gift for his mother in one shop. It was a tiny Viking
ship made of silver with a dragon’s head at its prow. Inside the ship
was a little spoon. The shopkeeper said that the little ship was made to
hold salt for the table. Harold bought himself some woolen mittens. They
were very warm mittens made from the wool of the sheep of Norway—white
sheep and black sheep. The mittens were white with black figures on
them. The shopkeeper said that Norwegian women who live in the country
knit or crochet the mittens and weave the rugs during the winter when
they cannot work in the fields.
Sometimes Harold did not get home at the right time for meals. His
grandmother thought that queer for any boy. She said that Harold’s
father had always been ready for every meal when he was a boy. But at
first Harold just couldn’t remember what were the right hours for meals
at grandmother’s house. He was always on time for the first breakfast,
which was served very early. He ate bread and butter and drank milk,
while his grandmother, his mother, and his father ate bread and butter
and drank coffee. But Harold often forgot the second breakfast, which
grandmother served at ten o’clock. Then to grandmother’s surprise he
would come into the house at twelve o’clock expecting lunch. He got a
lunch of course, and then might forget that dinner was served at three
o’clock. Grandmother did not scold one bit though, and in a few days
Harold learned to be on time for every meal. He liked grandmother’s tea,
which she served at eight o’clock each evening. He always asked for some
thick brown goat’s cheese to eat with his bread and butter as he drank
his tea.
How pleased grandmother was when Harold went over to her after a meal,
kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Tak for maten.” He was saying,
“Thank you for the food,” as his father had taught him to say it. All
polite girls and boys in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark say, “Thank you for
the food,” to their mothers after a meal.