BIRDS AND BOYS IN NORWAY. 



Before we came to our Wisconsin 

 home Hjalmar and I were school friends 

 in our native country, Norway. Had 

 you started to school with me some beau- 

 tiful summer morning, you would have 

 waited at Hjalmar's father's gate until 

 our little friend came running out to ac- 

 company us, and this is what you would 

 have seen had you looked around you as 

 you stood waiting. A hilly country with 

 here and there a level plain, and not very 

 far apart for the farms in Norway are 

 much smaller than those of Wisconsin — 

 you would have seen neat farmhouses, 

 sided and painted white, and outbuild- 

 ings invariably painted red. The few 

 log houses are built in a much more 

 workmanlike manner than are American 

 log houses. From the highway there 

 are roads leading to the farmhouses and 

 many of these roads are lined on both 

 sides with trees and form beautiful ave- 

 nues. Many of the little homes are sur- 

 rounded by trees, and sometimes right 

 in the middle of a field are groves of 

 birch, ash, poplar and rowan trees. In 

 the distance on a level stretch of land is 

 the schoolhouse. It contains not only a 

 room for educational purposes, but also 

 other rooms in which dwell the teacher 

 and his family. In front of the school- 

 house is a large hill covered with trees ; 

 at the foot of the hill is a small river, 

 "back," we Norwegians call it, and the 

 word has its equivalent in the Anglo- 

 Saxon "beck." Back of the school 

 house are fields and further back a large 

 forest of pine and spruce. If you had 

 gone into the forest you would have 

 found isolated farms surrounded on all 

 sides by woods. The loveliest thing in 

 all the landscape is a little lake about 

 fine and one-fonrth miles long, and from 

 one- fourth to one-half a mile wide. Into 



this lake flows the baek, of which I have 

 spoken. In some places the banks of 

 the lake are high and steep, in others low, 

 and the fields extend down to the wa- 

 ter's edge. Here and there the elms and 

 willows bow their branches down to the 

 water and when the waves are high their 

 green leaves are wet with spray. In 

 school Hjalmar and I occupied a seat 

 with two other boys. Each seat was 

 made large enough to accommodate four 

 pupils, and a desk extended in one piece 

 across the entire length of the seat. In 

 school we were subject to very strict dis- 

 cipline but this only increased our zest 

 for sport, and we found many ways in 

 which to amuse ourselves, even in the 

 long, inclement winters. Then when all 

 the hills were clad in deep, soft snow, 

 we spent most of our spare time, when 

 the weather was not too cold, gliding 

 down them on skis. Our skis were from 

 six to ten feet long and about six inches 

 wide. We used to build high jumps in 

 the hills, and in going over them we 

 would sometimes fly in the air from 

 twenty to thirty feet before striking the 

 snow below. This was considered a 

 wonderful . feat for boys of our age, but 

 before we acquired such expertness we 

 met with many falls and were many 

 times buried deep in the snow, and as 

 our skis were tied to our feet it was 

 sometimes very hard work to extricate 

 ourselves. 



In the spring when the snow was melt- 

 ing and running down the hillsides, in 

 little singing streamlets, we used to build 

 dams to back up the water so as to fur- 

 nish power to run our water wheels. We 

 attached to each wheel a wooden ham- 

 mer and on a stick driven in the ground 

 we hung a piece of tin or other metal, 

 just far enough away so that the ham- 



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