Chapter 3 ON BOARD THE NORTH STAR

It was a sunny morning in late June. The waters of the Saltsj? 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 M?lar 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 M?lar 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 Saltsj?, 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 M?lar 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 M?lar 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 Sk?rg?rd," 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.