Greda was very happy one morning as she went to school. She carried a
small bundle in her hand as she hurried along. When she entered her
classroom she whispered to the teacher, “Today is my birthday.” Then the
teacher brought out a small stand just big enough to hold the little
Swedish flag which Greda took out of her bundle. As Greda put the flag
into the flag holder, her classmates said, “Happy birthday, Greda,” and
sang a song to the flag.
[Illustration: A SEVENTH GRADE TIMEPLAN]
In that Swedish school girls and boys study almost the same subjects as
the Norwegian girls and boys study. When winter comes and snow covers
the hills, the skiing teacher comes to school every day. Now skiing
sounds like play, but it is a school study for girls and boys in those
North lands.
Girls and boys of Norway and Sweden want to be good ski runners and ski
jumpers. They begin to ski when they are very young. The young children
run only on small hills near the school. The older girls and boys go out
to longer mountainsides for their practice.
Of course many pupils get tumbles in the snow as they learn to run on
skis. The teacher says, “To be a good ski runner, you must have courage
to try, and if you fail, you must laugh and try again.”
Some children of the North lands go to school in the summer too. But the
summer school is very different from the regular school. “Summer school
is much more fun,” Martha, a Swedish girl, said after she had spent a
summer in a camp and had studied with a camp teacher. Her brother Nils
likes camp school too.
Martha and Nils are twins. They were nine years old when they went to
the summer camp.
[Illustration: MARTHA AND NILS PICKING BERRIES]
That summer Martha picked gooseberries. She learned to make gooseberry
pie, gooseberry jelly, and gooseberry preserves. Nils only helped to
take the stems off the berries, but he thought that was fun when he
worked with the other girls and boys of the camp.
[Illustration: NILS HELPING TO REPAIR THE ROOF]
Nils helped to repair the roof on one of the summerhouses. That roof was
of red tile. Nils carefully measured and fitted each piece of tile into
its proper place.
Nils helped some of the older boys to build a boat. He had his first
lesson in rowing in that very boat too.
[Illustration: NILS HELPING THE BOYS TO BUILD A BOAT]
But both Martha and Nils liked best the foot races which the girls and
boys of the camp ran every day. Martha was the best runner of the girls
and Nils had a good record too even though he ran with boys larger than
himself.