, and every two or three minutes we were urged to eat
more, to drink more coffee. How good were the potatoes! How good were
the bacon and the cheese and the butter! I thought that that meal tasted
better than any I had eaten in my life.

[Illustration: "The husband suddenly disappeared through the trap-door
and soon came back with potatoes and a big piece of bacon."]

When we stopped, for we had eaten to our hearts' content, with one voice
husband and wife said: "Eat more, eat more;" and before I knew it, our
two cups were filled for the third time, and more potatoes and bacon
were put on our plates. They all seemed so happy to see us eat with such
an appetite.

The dear farmers of Norway and Sweden were always so hospitable and kind
to me. Do not wonder that I love them. No one in these countries has
ever tried to do me harm or ever robbed me of a penny.

After our meal we stretched our legs before the open fireplace. I was
more happy than if I had been in a splendid palace. I forgot the snow
and storm. How nice it was to be in front of a fireplace when the storm
was raging!

The farmer put more sticks on the fire. The room was in a perfect blaze
of light. Gradually the fire died out, and when there were only embers
left he stirred them with the poker until not a particle of flame
appeared, and when there was no danger of fumes he shut the trap so that
no heat would escape through the chimney. The time of going to bed had
come.

I was wondering all the time where we were all going to sleep, for there
were no beds in sight. "Perhaps," said I to myself, "we are all going up
the ladder to sleep upstairs. Perhaps we are going to sleep on the
floor." But I did not see any mattress, sheepskins, or home-made woollen
blankets anywhere--and these when together would have made a big pile.

Suddenly I saw the daughters come to the bench-like sofas and pull out
a drawer out of each sofa. These were to be the beds. They were filled
with hay, with two sheepskins on the top to be used as sheets and
blankets.

These sliding boxes could be made of different widths, according to the
number of occupants that were to sleep in the same bed.

I said to myself, "Strange-looking beds these," when one of the girls
said, "Sometimes we can squeeze five or six into one of these beds." I
was glad I was not going to be the fifth or sixth, for we should have
been packed like sardines or herring.

When everything was ready the boys ascend