THE AMERICAN-SCANDINA VIAN REVIEW 
1 53 
pictures were rare in those 
days, but the schoolmas¬ 
ter’s room had several, 
among them the inevitable 
portrait of Martin Lu¬ 
ther. The tall brown 
beaver hat and the um¬ 
brella covered with blue 
and white checked home- 
spun that stood in one 
corner helped to give the 
room its flavor of a per¬ 
sonality so distinct that 
one could almost taste it; 
and although the place 
antedates the scenes of A 
Happy Boy, it is per¬ 
vaded by something of the 
same humble dignity that 
surrounded the school- 
A Corner of the Pastor’s Study 
master we have read of in Bjornson’s story. 
It was, in fact, one of the great pleasures I found in strolling 
about Maihaugen that it gave actuality to the images of Norwegian life 
I had gained from poetry and novels. How often had I not, for 
instance, read about the tun. Unconsciously I was picturing it on 
the lines of a sprawling Middle Western farmyard—even though I 
had not exactly furnished it with red barns and lombardy poplars. 
Not until I saw the Bjornstad gaard with its twenty-one buildings did 
I realize that the tun has come down from a time when the family was 
a unit against the rest of the 
world, that it is a small and 
tight enclosure, a snug and safe 
retreat, sacred to the family 
and its guests. At Bjornstad 
all the houses open upon the 
tun, turning their backs to the 
outside world, and the inter¬ 
stices between them are closed 
with fencing, so that there is no 
admittance except through the 
beautiful arched portal which 
can be locked with a very busi¬ 
ness-like huge iron key. 
The Bjornstad gaard is al¬ 
most a museum in itself. As it 
In the Peripatetic Schoolmaster’s House His 
Mittens Are Drying by the Fire, His Travel¬ 
ing Desk Stands in the Middle of the Room 
