Chapter 2 THE SURPRISE BOX

All day long the gentle breezes blowing through the city streets, and the bright sun shining on the sparkling water of Lake M?lar, called to the children that spring had come in Stockholm.

Great cakes of ice went floating through the arches of the bridge across the Norrstr?m, and gray gulls, sailing up from the bay, darted down to the swirling water to find dainty morsels for their dinner.

The little steamers which had been lying idly at the quays all winter were being scraped and painted, and made ready for their summer's work; children were playing in the parks; throngs of people filled the streets;-spring was in the air!

But in the Ekman household Gerda and Birger had been as busy as bees all day, with no thought for the dancing blue water and the shining blue sky. Their tongues had flown fast, their fingers faster; they had hunted up old clothes, old books, old games; and had added one package after another to the contents of a big box that stood in the corner of the pleasant living-room.

"Perhaps I can finish this needle-book, if I hurry," said Gerda, drawing her chair up to the window to catch the light from the setting sun.

"I wanted to send this work-box, too," added Birger; "but how can I carve an initial on the cover when I don't know who is going to have the box?"

"Carve an 'F' for friend," suggested Gerda, stopping to thread her needle; but just then there was a sound of chattering voices on the stairs, and work-box and needle-book were forgotten.

As Birger sprang to open the door, a little mob of happy boys and girls burst into the room with a shout of heartiest greeting. Their eyes were sparkling with fun, their cheeks rosy from a run in the fresh spring air, and their arms were filled with bundles of all sizes and shapes.

"Ho, Birger! Oh, Gerda!" was their cry; "it took us an endless time to get past the porter's wife at the street door, and she made us answer a dozen questions. 'To what apartment were we going? Whom did we wish to see? Why did we all come together?'"

"And did you tell her that you were coming to the third apartment to see the Ekman twins, and were bringing clothing and gifts to fill a surprise box?" asked Gerda, holding up her apron for the packages.

"Yes," replied a jolly, round-faced boy whom the others called Oscar, "and we had to explain that we didn't know who was to have the box, nor why you telephoned to us to bring the gifts to-night, when you said only last week that you wouldn't want them until the first of June."

"There has been a hard storm on the northern coast, and Father is going by train as far as Lule?, to see if it did much damage to the lighthouses," Gerda explained. "He thinks that the storm may have caused great suffering among the poor people, so we are going to send our box with him, instead of waiting to send it by boat in June. He has to start on his trip very early in the morning, so the box must be ready to-night."

Everyone began talking at once, and a tall girl with pretty curly hair, who had something important to say, had to raise her voice above the din before she could be heard. "Let us write a letter and put it into the box with the gifts," she suggested.

"Ja s?! Yes, of course! That is good!" they all cried; and while Gerda ran to get pen and ink, the boys and girls gathered around a table that stood in the center of the room.

"Dear Yunker Unknown:-" began a mischievous-looking boy, pretending to write with a great flourish.

"Nonsense!" cried Sigrid Lundgren. "The box is filled with skirts and aprons and caps and embroidered belts, and all sorts of things for a girl. Don't call her Yunker. Yunker means farmer."

"Well, then, 'Dear Jungfru Unknown:-'" the boy corrected, with more flourishes.

"I wish we knew who would get the box, then we should know just what to say," said little Hilma Berling.

"She is probably just your age, and is named Selma," said Birger; and everyone laughed over his choice of a name.

"Yes," agreed Oscar, "and she lives in the depths of the white northern forests, with only a white polar bear and a white snowy owl for company."

"I don't believe we shall ever be able to write a letter," said Birger, shaking his head. "How can we write to some one we have never seen?" and he sat himself down on a red painted cricket beside the tall stove and began carving the cover of the work-box.

"We have made all the little gifts in that box for some one we have never seen," said Sigrid. "It ought to be just as easy to write her a letter."

"No, Sigrid," Birger told her; "it is the hardest thing in the world to write a letter, especially if you have nothing to say. I would rather make a box and carve it, than write half of a letter."

"Here comes Mother. She will tell us what to write," said Gerda.

"Why not write about some of the good times you have together here in Stockholm," suggested her mother, and she took up the pen and waited for some one to start the letter.

"Our dear Girl-friend in the North:-" said Hilma for a beginning; and as Fru Ekman wrote at their dictation, first one and then another added a message, until finally she leaned back in her chair and told them to listen to what she had written.

* * * * *

"We are a club of capital boys and girls because we live in Sweden's capital city," she began.

"That was from Oscar," interrupted Gerda; but her mother continued,-"and we send you this box for a surprise.

"We go to school and have to study very hard; but we find a little time for play every day. Sometimes we go to the park, but when it storms we are glad to stay in the house and work at sewing or sloyd. So, ever since Yule-tide, we have been making little gifts for you,-the girls with their needles, the boys with their saws and knives.

"We hope you will enjoy wearing the caps and aprons as much as we have enjoyed making them; and if you have a brother, please give him the watch and the leather watch-chain. It is a gift from Oscar.

"The rainbow skirt is one which Gerda wore last summer. She has outgrown it now, and will have to have a new one next year. She hopes it is not too small for you.

"If you want to know what Stockholm is like, you must think of islands and bridges, because the city is built on eight islands, and they are all connected by bridges with each other and with the mainland. In summer, little steamers go around the city, in and out among the islands; but in winter the lake and all the bays are frozen over, and there is good skating everywhere.

"Then you should see the twelve girls and boys who are writing this letter, holding fast to one another in a long line, and skimming across Djurg?rden bay or skating around Stadenholm, where the King's Palace stands.

"Sometime, if you will come to visit us in Stockholm, we will have you join the line and skate with us under the bridges, and up and down the waterways; and we will show you what good times we can have in the city."

* * * * *

"So we did write a letter after all," sighed Birger, as Fru Ekman finished reading. "Now we must sign our names;" and after much discussion and laughter the twelve names appeared on the paper, written in a circle without any beginning or end,-Sigrid's and Hilma's and Oscar's and Gerda's and all.

"Put it in the box and we'll nail on the cover," cried Oscar, picking up the hammer and pounding as if he were driving a dozen nails at once.

"Can't a poor man read his newspaper in peace, without being disturbed by all this noise?" called Herr Ekman from the next room; but when he appeared in the doorway the merry twinkle in his eyes showed that he cared little about the noise and was glad to see the children having a good time.

"I'd like to be going north with this box," said Magnus, as he took some nails and began nailing on the cover.

"Father goes every summer to inspect the lighthouses along the coast," said Birger, "and he has promised to take me with him sometime."

"And me, too," added Gerda; "he wouldn't take you without me."

"Is it very different in the far North?" asked Oscar.

"Yes," replied Herr Ekman, "the winter is long and cold and dark; there are severe storms, and deep snow covers the ground; but the boys and girls find plenty to do, and seem to be just as happy as you are," and he pinched Oscar's ear as he spoke.

"I don't see how they can be happy in the winter when it is dark all night and almost all day," said Olaf.

Herr Ekman laughed. "Do you think they should go into a den, like the bears, and sleep through the winter?" he asked.

"But think of the summer, when it is light all day and all night, too," said Sigrid. "Then they have fun enough to make up for the winter."

"I never could understand about our long nights in winter and our long days in summer," spoke Hilma Berling.

"It is because we live so near the North Pole," Oscar told her. "Now that Commander Peary of the United States of America has really discovered the North Pole, perhaps the geographies will make it easier to understand how the sun juggles with the poles and circles.

"I am sorry that it has been discovered," he added. "I always meant to do it myself, when I got old enough to discover anything."

"If I could stand on the top of Mount Dundret and see the sun shining at midnight, I am sure I could understand about it without any geography," Gerda declared.

"If you should go north with Herr Lighthouse-Inspector Ekman this summer, you might meet the little girl who receives this box," said Sigrid.

"I should know her the minute I saw her," Gerda said decidedly.

"How would you know her?" questioned Birger. "You don't even know her name or where she lives. Father is going to give the box to the lighthouse-master at Lule?, and he will decide where to send it."

"Oh, there are ways!" replied Gerda. "And besides, she would have on my rainbow skirt."

That night, after the children had trooped down the stairs and away to their homes, and after Gerda and Birger had said good-night and gone to their beds, the father and mother sat by the table, talking over plans for the summer.

"I suppose we shall start for Dalarne the day after school closes," suggested Fru Ekman.

"No," answered her husband, "I have been thinking that the children are old enough now to travel a little; and I have decided to take them with me when I go north this summer. They ought to know more about the forests, and rivers, and shores of their good old Mother Svea."